


who discovered your secret

by LullabyKnell



Series: LullabyKnell and the Harry Potter Fics [34]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Birthday, Character Death Fix, Do not repost, First Meetings, Fluff, Gen, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, Harry Potter was Adopted by Other(s), Harry Potter-centric, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Canon-Typical Violence, Kinda, Light Angst, POV Harry Potter, POV Third Person Limited, Pre-Canon, Pre-Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Regulus Black Feels, Regulus Black Lives, Regulus Black Needs a Hug, Regulus Black-centric, Unreliable Narrator, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24500287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LullabyKnell/pseuds/LullabyKnell
Summary: Pre-Canon AU: On the street named Privet Drive, in Little Whinging, Surrey, a man lived alone at Number Eight, supposedly.It was apparently difficult to tell.
Relationships: Regulus Black & Harry Potter
Series: LullabyKnell and the Harry Potter Fics [34]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/282654
Comments: 480
Kudos: 2483
Collections: Suggested Good Reads





	1. The Man from Number Eight

**Author's Note:**

> A cleaner version of [this fic on my WIP fic & ficlets sideblog](https://lullabyknellficlets.tumblr.com/post/191000719089/an-hp-fic-who-discovered-your-secret-10k-of-a), which was based on [this Canon Divergence AU](https://lullabyknell.tumblr.com/post/190929188648/canon-divergence-au-regulus-lives-but-hes-at) when I was asking people to share their dream canon divergence fic with me. Thank you, [singelisilverslippers](https://singelisilverslippers.tumblr.com/) for sharing the idea with me. 
> 
> This fic is complete with a Happy yet Open/Ambiguous Ending, like my other pre-canon adoption/kidnapping fic [**Not Just Pretty Words**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21166118), which is a HP & Addams Family crossover that also resembles an extended prologue without the rest of the story. This fic is fluff. I've sketched out the beginning of a sequel which has actual plot (which I will probably not actually write), but the purpose of this will be fluff.

On the street named Privet Drive, in Little Whinging, Surrey, a man lived alone at Number Eight, supposedly. It was apparently difficult to tell. No one besides a boy named Harry Potter, who lived with his aunt’s family at Number Four, seemed to pay the man any real attention. No one else on Privet Drive seemed to be _able_ to pay the man any attention. 

This was very strange in young Harry Potter’s eyes for many reasons, one of which was that the man was the strangest person on Privet Drive by far, and the residents of Privet Drive didn’t like strange appearances or strange behaviours. They usually weren’t shy about sticking their noses in and saying so. Harry would know, because he was strange too, and the residents of Privet Drive often talked about how much they wished he wasn’t there, with hard looks and pinched frowns, with little care as to whether he was in earshot or not. 

Harry Potter was a small, brown-skinned boy with knobby knees and large, circular glasses, with a funny, lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. On this street of identical houses, with their exactly neat lawns and perfectly manicured bushes, no one else looked like him. The pale man who lived at Number Eight, who kept his house perfectly remarkable in every way, looked even stranger in Harry’s opinion - and yet no one talked about him. 

For example: Harry had unruly black hair which never lay flat, which seemed to grow back even wilder every time his Aunt Petunia tried to shear it off. The man at Number Eight had even longer hair, black and straight to just past his chin, which rightly should have garnered derisive remarks about “hippies and hoodlums” from his aunt’s husband, Vernon Dursley. And yet, Uncle Vernon didn’t even seem to know the man existed and so didn’t spare him a single grumble. 

Harry also wore the hand-me-down clothes of his spoiled cousin Dudley, who was the same age but a plump and burly boy, so the old clothes hung off Harry’s skinny limbs. Aunt Petunia insisted there was no point in buying him better clothes, since he’d only ruin them. The hand-me-downs were often frayed and faded, and soon gained many scuffs and holes from Harry’s many chores, and the residents of Privet Drive agreed that he looked like quite the delinquent. Meanwhile, in this neighbourhood on the hunt for intruding oddness, the man at Number Eight dressed all his black, in long and dusty clothes, and no one said a word about how grim he looked. 

When it came to strange behaviours, Harry regularly got cuffed upside the head for any number of things: for staring too long at anyone and for not meeting someone’s eyes for long enough, for getting in the way indoors and then for loitering in the street suspiciously, and for running across the road and stepping on people’s lawns and almost every _slightly_ wrong thing he did. 

He even got blamed for things he didn’t do! Dudley and his little gang of equally awful young boys had accidentally broken windows, dented cars, and trampled rose bushes without getting in any real trouble. They had purposefully stolen garden ornaments and painted rude things on fences as well, without care for the consequences. Harry got blamed for most of it. He was punished for being a delinquent even when he was _sure_ that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon knew that it had really been their perfect little angel Duddikins who’d done it. No one ever wanted to hear him out. 

Even when impossible things happened - freak accidents that couldn’t possibly have been anyone’s fault - Harry was punished. The Dursleys had once blamed their undesirable nephew for a sudden change in weather, though they hadn’t directly admitted it. It was agonizingly unfair. 

Meanwhile, the man at Number Eight almost never left his house and he never spoke to anyone when he did, and no one said a word about how rude and unsociable this was. The black curtains in all the windows of Number Eight stayed closed at all hours of the day. No one set out the trash or the milk bottles. No mail was ever delivered. No cars ever sat in the driveway. And there were never _ever_ any visitors. 

Harry would have never even known that anyone lived at Number Eight at all if he hadn’t been looking for them. In the process of looking, sometimes, very rarely, when taking out the trash, bringing in the garden hose, or peering out the windows at night, he would see a man coming or going from the house on foot. The man was usually carrying a case like he was off on important business. 

Once, Harry had seen the man standing at the end of the street, dripping wet, a black figure in the lamplight, looking in the direction of Number Four. The man had stared back at Harry for what had felt like forever, but had probably not been very long at all, before he’d limped inside Number Eight and slammed the door. 

~ 

Harry hadn’t begun looking for the man at Number Eight, not really, until the summer he turned eight, when he was unexpectedly introduced to perhaps the strangest part of all: Number Eight itself. He found that the unremarkable house was quite remarkable after all. It was then that he began to wonder who exactly lived there… and why no one else seemed to be able to pay any attention to the house or the strange man who presumably called it home. 

This was the summer that his cousin Dudley and his little gang put a proper name and dogged enthusiasm to one of Dudley’s favorite hobbies already: Harry Hunting. It was a very simple game. It involved chasing Harry, hooting and hollering, until Harry either got away or got shoved face-first into a mud puddle. Or was repeatedly hit in the face with his own hand. Or was thrown into a pond. Or pushed around in circles until he toppled over into the dirt. Or something. 

Dudley and his friends weren’t very creative, though they put their mean little minds towards trying to be with earnest frequency. They thought Harry Hunting was a lark of a way to spend a summer. 

Harry personally thought differently, but, of course, his opinion wasn’t taken into account. 

One day, a game of Harry Hunting was happening on the street of Privet Drive itself, where there weren’t really any convenient trees to climb or bushes to wiggle through. Harry was so focused on getting away that he didn’t look where he was going. He tripped over a curb, fell onto someone’s lawn, and his second thought (the first thought being _“oh no”)_ was that he was probably going to get into a great deal of trouble for trampling on someone’s carefully maintained grass. 

Harry scrambled around and backwards, a little uselessly, as the shadows of Dudley and his friends fell over him. This was the part where the awful boys tried to have a real imagination for a time. All Harry could really do was wait for them to get bored and give up. 

It was to his surprise that no one pounced on him or leaped forward to get the first good kick in. Dudley and his friends stood at the edge of the lawn, several steps away, shuffling their feet, frowning at him, or squinting at the house behind him. Assuming that an adult had appeared and was about to shriek at all of them to get off the grass, Harry looked over his shoulder. 

No one was there. The black curtains of the house were still shut. A bold number **8** hung beside the closed door. The perfectly unremarkable house seemed to loom over all of them all on its own. 

No one had ever told Harry to stay away from Number Eight - and people _had_ told him to stay far away from their perfect homes before - and he realized here that he wasn’t even sure who lived here. _The Man with the Funny Sneer_ lived at Number Two. _The Loud Woman with the Big Hair_ lived at Number Five. And _the Mean Old Couple with the Yappy Dog_ lived at Number Ten. Harry had lived next to Number Eight for roughly seven years now and he hadn’t the foggiest who was inside. Not a clue. 

He looked back towards Dudley. 

His cousin was scowling at him with a pinched expression, like he was going through great effort to think through something, and he wasn’t moving. His friends were all looking at him in various states of confusion. Even if Dudley wasn’t the fastest and often wasn’t the first to catch Harry if it came down to a chase, he was the leader, and his little budding gang followed him when they played this and every other stupid game. Dudley had stopped, so the game had stopped too. 

Dudley lifted his foot. 

Harry scooted farther back automatically. 

Dudley’s foot fell back down, in the same place, and his face twisted up even more tightly. His fists were clenched. His gaze was slightly unfocused, moving down from Harry’s face to his shoes, and then to the grass. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to take a step forward. 

“...Dudley?” said one of his friends. “What’re we doing?” 

“Are we waiting for something?” asked another. 

Harry stayed very still. Everyone here was confused, but none more than him. 

“...Let’s go do something else!” Dudley declared finally, his face still all screwed up, and he turned his back on Harry with a huff. “I’m bored of this! Let’s go back to the park!” 

“Yeah, alright!” 

“Bet we can break that swing today!” 

Dudley’s first two friends followed him eagerly, with relieved expressions, as though they’d already forgotten about Harry, but the last member of his little gang lingered behind. It was a squirrely little boy named Piers, who had the greatest claim to an imagination of the group and had taken to using it meanly like a duck to water. He always liked to get one last kick or spit in if he could. So, Piers took a step forward like he meant to get that kick. 

But a strange, almost panicked expression overtook him and he spun around immediately instead. His head whipped back and forth as though looking for someone. 

“Mum?” he said confusedly. 

“Whassat, Piers?” 

“Did you hear my mum calling, Dud?” 

“What? Already?” Dudley looked around the street. “But her car’s not here!” 

Piers scratched his head. “I could’ve sworn I heard her!” 

“I didn’t hear anything!” 

“Nope!” 

With one last look in the general direction of Number Eight, not at Harry himself, Piers loped nervously after the others as they wandered in the direction of the park. Dudley and his friends had always found Harry Hunting entertaining enough before. Now, all of them were keeping an uncertain lookout for adults who might tell them off, even though the street was empty. 

Harry stood up on shaky legs and looked back at Number Eight. He had never paid it any attention before. The black curtains were still closed and so was the door, and there were no personal touches about the house or its garden whatsoever, and yet… there was something about it. 

The next morning, Harry cautiously paid the house some attention again, and he noticed that the marks he’d accidentally left on the lawn when he’d tripped had somehow vanished overnight. The grass had apparently grown back in less than a day and already been neatly trimmed. Harry realized then that he’d never seen anyone doing any gardening at Number Eight, even though it always looked perfectly inoffensive, and he’d never heard of his nosy Aunt Petunia complain about it either way. 

So, Harry spent the next year giving Number Eight a great deal of attention. 

~

When Harry Potter was standing on the empty driveway of Number Eight, no one could really bother him, even when they tried. Games of Harry Hunting always ended mysteriously early when Harry could throw himself on the lawn. Attempts at scolding for staring or loitering always ended in the determined adult in question suddenly remembering that they’d left the kettle on, were expecting an important telephone call, or any number of little emergencies that required running off right away. 

Even Aunt Petunia would suddenly remember leaving a roast in the oven at too high a heat or open bleach in the bathroom! Even though it was never true. Even though it meant leaving Harry amused and bemused behind her, though he was always punished later for not obediently following her back to Number Four. 

When Harry Potter sat on the doorstep of Number Eight, no one even _looked_ at him. 

“Hey, Dud! Where’s your cousin?” Piers said one day, a month after that first failed game of Harry Hunting, as the whole gang trooped by Number Eight. “Thought I saw him around!” 

“I dunno, probably hiding somewhere,” Dudley said carelessly, before showing off the ball he’d taken from another kid at the park. He was apparently, somehow, unable to see Harry sitting on the doorstep of Number Eight with a pilfered comic book, completely in the open, less than a couple dozen feet away. 

It was strange and wonderful and practically _magic._

From then on, Harry thought he might have tried living on the doorstep of Number Eight if it was possible. He spent every second there that he dared. 

At the same time he was discovering the silent wonders of Number Eight, he began paying attention to the rarely-sighted man who apparently lived there. He began keeping track of the man’s strange appearance and stranger behaviours. The man cut such a strange, frightening figure that he made Harry a little nervous about camping out on his doorstep, playing with borrowed toys, wasting the afternoons in blissful safety. 

However, Harry only ever seemed to see the man in passing, turning a street corner at twilight or coming home in the pitch black, once or twice a month at most, even when Harry was looking for him. Some months had passed by without any sightings at all, like the last seven years before them. 

So, as the months went by, Harry worried less about running into him. 

~

When summer ended and school started again, Harry’s magical hiding spot on Number Eight faithfully waited for him to come back to Privet Drive every day. Harry wished there was something like it at school too. He’d never known before what it was like to have somewhere where no one could bother you whenever they wanted. No one could yell at him there. No one could so much as scowl at the fact of his existence. 

There was something unspeakably comfortable, Harry thought dreamily, in simply sitting around without anyone watching. 

When the weather became too cold to be hanging around outdoors for any real length of time, Harry thought he might die with the pain of missing that quiet, uncomfortable doorstep. The cupboard under the stairs, which was Harry’s cramped bedroom in Number Four, just wasn’t comparable. 

He still didn’t understand why Number Eight hid the people who stayed there, nor why no one said anything about the strange man, who couldn’t possibly have been welcome here. He couldn’t help but wonder what made Number Eight so special. So, one day after midwinter, Harry mustered up the courage to ask his aunt an important question about Number Eight. Petunia and Vernon Dursley didn’t like questions - at least, they didn’t like Harry asking questions, because they didn’t like their nephew or anything that he did - but Harry’s curiosity had become too much to bear. 

“Aunt Petunia,” Harry began carefully, after supper, when everyone was more likely to be in a good mood. “What’s the name of the man who lives at Number Eight?” 

“Hmm?” 

“What’s the name of the man who lives at Number Eight?” 

Aunt Petunia looked up from her magazine, expression pinched like she was about to demand what he’d done to make one of their neighbours angry this time, but then her brow furrowed deeply. Her lips pinched. She turned on Uncle Vernon beside her on the sofa, who was watching telly with Dudley, and she poked her husband. 

“Vernon, who lives at Number Eight?” 

Uncle Vernon didn’t look away from the telly. “Mm? What was that, Pet?” 

“Number Eight! Who lives there?” 

“Mmmm. That, ah, Miller couple, isn’t it, Pet?” 

“No. No, they moved out at least six years ago, maybe seven. Lucinda Miller hasn’t been to any of the neighbourhood meetings for ages. Good riddance,” Aunt Petunia scoffed, before she frowned again. “Who moved into Number Eight after them?” 

Uncle Vernon was barely paying attention. Dudley wasn’t paying attention at all. No one was paying any attention to Harry hanging off of every word. 

“Vernon!” 

“Hm? Oh. Some, mmm, old chap, wasn’t it?” 

Aunt Petunia’s face screwed up just like Dudley’s had, all those months ago, unable to follow Harry onto Number Eight’s lawn. “No, he’s not old,” she insisted. “He’s not married either, even though this is a _family_ neighbourhood. Vernon, do you-?” 

“I’m afraid I don’t know, Pet!” Uncle Vernon snapped. “You’d know that sort of thing better than I would anyway! I’m trying to watch this program!” 

Aunt Petunia settled back with her magazine, her lips still pursed in thought. She didn’t turn around to look back at Harry and Harry crept backwards out of the room, unwilling to risk any more questions today. One of Aunt Petunia’s favourite pastimes was spying on all their neighbours. If she didn’t already know who lived at Number Eight when the man had been there for nearly as long as Harry had been at Number Four, then Harry had the feeling that she’d never know. 

The man at Number Eight clearly didn’t want to meet any of his neighbours. With a house like Number Eight, clearly the man didn’t _have_ to meet any of his neighbours. 

Harry thought he’d rather like to have a house exactly like it someday. 

Over the next week, Harry spotted Aunt Petunia looking in the direction of Number Eight with a frown, but there was nothing to see. The lights were never on. The newspaper was never delivered. The chimney didn’t even smoke. As the weeks went by, Harry’s aunt seemed to forget to find out more about the man who lived there. After a month, Aunt Petunia didn’t pay any attention to the house at all, like she’d forgotten there was anything strange about it. 

It was like the house didn’t exist, except no one actually so much as suggested that Number Eight wasn’t actually there. Everyone agreed that there was a perfectly decent house in the plot designated Number Eight. Everyone agreed that a man lived there alone, probably, though they couldn’t really remember anything about him. Not even his name. They might have seen him before, but they might not have seen him, actually, and it was apparently really difficult to tell. 

~

Summer came around again and school finally ended, and Harry Potter was going to turn nine years old in about a month. With the weather nice enough again, he had the intention of spending as much time as possible on the doorstep of Number Eight, where he wouldn’t bother anyone and no one would bother him. So long as he did his chores and he came when they shouted for him, the Dursleys seemed to enjoy it immensely when Harry made him disappear and they could pretend that he didn’t exist. Harry quite enjoyed it too. It was a mutually agreeable silent arrangement. 

Harry wasn’t at all expecting, one morning in early July, for the man who lived at Number Eight to come home in the middle of the day. Harry was playing with some old tin soldiers that Dudley didn’t play with anymore, before he was overcome with the sensation of being watched. He looked up to see the strange man standing in the driveway of Number Eight, staring at him. 

The man wasn’t an old chap. He didn’t have any wrinkles, though he did have grey bags under his eyes. He had a pale face, a straight nose, and he was thinner than he looked from a distance. His chin-length hair was tied back, he wore a long dark coat and dusty black boots and black gloves, even though it was quite warm out, and he was carrying a brown leather bag. He had shockingly grey eyes and he looked very surprised to see Harry sitting on his doorstep. 

Harry was frozen. He had no idea what to do. He had never seen the man up close before and very rarely during daylight hours. The man had never caught him passing time on Number Eight’s doorstep before now. 

They stared at each other for much too long. 

“...Sorry,” Harry said finally, hastily gathering up his tin soldiers. Once he’d picked up all the half-broken toys, he stood up and skirted around the man, stepping off his property. 

The man watched him all the while. 

“Sorry,” Harry said again. 

The man looked confused by the apology, but then he nodded, stiffly, and went up to the door. He glanced back at Harry, then produced a key from the pocket of his coat, glanced at Harry _again,_ unlocked the door, glanced back at Harry for a _third time,_ and then disappeared inside very quickly, closing the door carefully behind him. Harry didn’t hear it lock. The man didn’t come out again. 

As Harry wandered, confused and upset, in the direction of Number Four, he was overcome again with the sensation of being watched. However, when he looked back, the black curtains of Number Eight hadn’t moved. 

~

Harry had spent nearly a year watching Number Eight and the man who lived there. Now, it seemed like they were watching him. He didn’t see the man who lived there at all, not at any time of day, but he couldn’t help the feeling that someone was staring at him almost every time he was in view of Number Eight. 

Being without his hiding spot was miserable. The Dursleys were enormously offended that Harry had apparently decided to exist again. After a couple of weeks of being scolded and shoved and so very disliked for his presence underfoot, Harry warily returned to the doorstep of Number Eight, carrying the stubborn hope that he was simply imagining things. The man hadn’t told Harry to leave his magical house alone. It was possible that Harry was just being silly and that he wouldn’t run into the strange man for another whole year. 

Harry cautiously spent time on the doorstep of Number Eight every single day for a week, a little longer each day, and the man didn’t come outside to tell him to get lost. 

Hopeful and desperate, on the day before his ninth birthday, Harry settled in on Number Eight’s doormat with a book about space that Dudley hadn’t wanted, since it didn’t involve blowing up aliens. It looked as though it was going to be a good day. The old couple from Number Ten and their yappy dog had gone by without noticing him. The missus of Number Three was watering her flowers and, completely oblivious to the fact she was being watched, had kicked over Number Five’s cheery garden signs again. Down the street, the husband of Number Eleven was now washing his brand new car with his son and Harry was relatively certain that they had both forgotten he’d ever existed. 

Harry wasn’t expecting the door next to him to suddenly crack open. He startled and looked up fearfully, finding the strange man who lived there peering out at him from behind a mostly closed door. 

“Sorry,” Harry said again, quickly, and scrambled to leave. 

“Why are you on my doorstep?” 

Harry paused. The man didn’t sound angry, but he didn’t sound friendly either, and his expression looked a little disapproving. His voice was quiet. He sounded quite a bit posher than Harry had expected. Yet instead of looming furiously over his trespasser, the man was still pretty much hiding behind his door, only a sliver of his pale face visible. 

Harry hadn’t so much as suggested to anyone that Number Eight was magical - especially not the Dursleys - partly because he’d begun fearing that bringing it to anyone’s attention would break the spell that let him spend time here unbothered. He had no idea how to explain to this man that his house was magical. Did the man know his house was magical? Did the man _not_ know? He looked like he expected an answer. 

“No one bothers me when I’m here,” Harry said finally. 

Because that, at least, was true. It didn’t make him sound like a nutter either. 

“...Ah,” the man said. 

He didn’t say anything else. His single visible eye just stared at Hary. 

“I can leave,” Harry said, turning to run away. 

“No, it’s… fine.” 

Harry turned back around, looking up at the man confusedly. He definitely didn’t want to lose his magical hiding spot. Being given _permission_ to stay was something he had never dared to dream possible. If this entire encounter wasn’t so very strange, Harry probably would have considered this very lucky indeed. 

“Just don’t tell anyone about me,” the man said. 

“Alright,” Harry agreed quickly. 

“Don’t tell _anyone,”_ the man stressed, like he didn’t believe Harry wasn’t about to go knocking on all the other doors on Privet Drive. “Don’t talk to anyone about me. Not even the Muggles.” 

“Alright,” Harry agreed again, just as easily, even quicker than before. He didn’t know anyone named Muggle. Then he paused and asked uncertainly, “What… what if I’ve already talked about you to someone?” 

The sliver of the man’s face looked horrified. “Who?” 

“My aunt.” 

The door to Number Eight opened a little more. 

“What did you tell her?” the man barked. 

“I asked her what your name was!” Harry answered, his heart quickening. 

“...Pardon?” 

“I asked her who lived here?” 

Harry was ready for this strange, frightening man to blow up at him, but suddenly he just looked… very confused. He looked confused and surprised rather a lot for someone who was the strangest and most mysterious person on the street, Harry thought, who lived in a magic house that stopped people from paying attention to him. 

“You… did you tell her anything else?” 

“No.” 

“You didn’t tell her what I am?” 

Harry didn’t understand this question. “What… you are?” 

The man didn’t reply. He just kept looking at Harry from behind the door, like _Harry_ was the strangest person on Privet Drive. 

“I pointed out you exist?” Harry said. “Is that what you mean?” 

“...No,” the man said. 

After a quick glance up and down the street, once it was clear that Mrs. Number Three and Mr. Number Eleven and Number Eleven Junior weren’t paying them any attention, the man opened the door a little more and, in the opening, crouched down in front of Harry. His expression was rather intense and his pale grey stare made it worse. He looked actually sort of dangerous now. 

“Tell me _exactly_ what you told your aunt about me. Tell me the _exact_ words.” 

Harry tried his best to remember, but it had been about half-a-year ago now. “Aunt Petunia, what’s the name of the man who lives at Number Eight?” 

There were several seconds of silence after this answer. 

“That’s it?” the man said. 

“Yeah.” 

“You didn’t talk to anyone else?” 

“I sorta… asked some other people if they knew who lived here?” 

“...And?” 

“They didn’t know either?” 

“...Good,” the man said. “They’re not supposed to know.” 

Harry assumed that meant he wasn’t supposed to know either. 

“...How long have you been sitting on my doorstep?” the man asked. 

“Only sometimes.” 

“Since _when?”_

“...Since last summer?” 

The man’s eyes widened, then he looked as though he was thinking quickly. “Because… you figured out something was keeping the Muggles away from here?” 

“I don’t know any Muggles?” 

If there was a Mr. and Mrs. Muggle who lived here on Privet Drive, Harry had never met them. Maybe they were one of those couples whose names Harry could never remember - which was quite a lot of them, actually - except “Muggle” didn’t sound familiar in the slightest. It was an odd name. 

“Muggles?” the man frowned. “Are they-? I don’t know what new word they might be trying to make people use now. I haven’t heard of one. No-maj? Mundane? Whatever you call people who don’t have magic,” he explained impatiently. “Most people call them Muggles.” 

Now it was Harry’s turn for his eyes to go wide. 

The man’s brow furrowed. “...Is one of those considered rude now?” 

“You’re really _magic?”_

“Pardon?” 

Of course! Number Eight really _was_ magic and so was this strange man who lived here! It felt like the confirmation of something Harry had always known. The Dursleys had always said that there was no such thing as magic or anything like it, but Harry didn’t have much faith in the Dursleys’ opinions. Not before and certainly not after a year of sitting unnoticeable on the strange doorstep of Number Eight, Privet Drive. 

The man closed his eyes and sighed. “You didn’t know?” 

No, of course Harry hadn’t known! He stared at the strange man in wonder. 

The strange, _magical_ man opened his eyes again and looked Harry over uncertainly, before he looked up and down Privet Drive again. “How did you think you were getting through when the Muggles weren’t?” he demanded, before he stood up again, slipping halfway back behind his door. “You can… stay on my doorstep so long as you don’t tell _anyone,_ especially not your aunt or any wizards you know, that I was ever here.” 

“I don’t know any wizards,” Harry promised. 

The man looked confused again. “No witches or Squibs either.” 

“I don’t know any of them either,” Harry promised him. Then, hesitantly but hopefully, he wondered, “Are there lots of wizards out there? ...And witches and Squibs? Are there lots of people who can do magic?” 

Now the man looked completely baffled. “I beg your pardon?” 

“Is… is it possible to learn it?” Harry tried. “Magic?” 

The man stared at him in disbelieving silence for long enough that Harry felt hot with stupidity. All of those had probably been extremely silly questions, ones which Harry probably wasn’t allowed to be asking. The man still didn’t answer when he unfroze, looking past Harry, up and down Privet Drive, like he was worried they were being watched, even though no one was looking their way. 

“...What has your aunt told you about magic?” the man asked slowly. 

Harry blinked. “That it’s… not real?” 

_“...Really?”_ the man said, sounding a little strangled. 

Well, that confirmed for Harry that this man had never met the Dursleys, who hated anything out of the ordinary and also anything like an imagination, and so despised nothing quite like the idea of magic. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had told him so man times that there was no such thing as magic, Harry thought they probably wouldn’t believe in magic even if someone waved it in their faces. 

When strange things happened around Harry - impossible things, which no one could ever adequately explain - like his appearing suddenly on a school roof or an ugly shirt suddenly shrinking, it was always referred to as his “funny business”. Freak incidents were never “like magic”. It was always _anything_ but magic. 

“Yeah, I’m not even allowed to say the magic word,” Harry confessed, a little embarrassedly. “The word ‘magic’, I mean. Not ‘please’.” 

The man looked distressed now, like Harry had said something terrible wrong and upsetting. The man looked up and down the street again, then he looked over his shoulder, back into his mysterious house. When he looked back at Harry, he seemed to have come to a decision, and he opened his front door a little wider. 

“Come inside,” he said. 

Harry knew he wasn’t supposed to go into the homes of strangers. He had an idea that you were probably especially not supposed to go into the strange magical homes of strange magical people, but he didn’t like that Dursley-ish idea fester. He’d spent a year now imagining again and again what strange things might be inside Number Eight, Privet Drive, and he _really_ wanted to learn more about magic. 

So he went inside anyway. 


	2. The Secrets Everyone Knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shape of Number Eight from the outside was identical to the shape of Number Four from the outside - all the houses on Privet Drive were identical, because that was how the residents liked it. On the inside, Number Eight was different.

The shape of Number Eight from the outside was identical to the shape of Number Four from the outside - all the houses on Privet Drive were identical, because that was how the residents liked it. The various insides that Harry had seen also looked much the same. The insides of the houses on Privet Drive looked like the residents had simultaneously tasked themselves with trying to be identical and individual all at once, which had the result of making their neat homes barely distinguishable to Harry’s inexpert eye. 

Number Eight was different. It was different in ways Harry couldn’t have known to imagine. For example, it was quite bright inside, with walls painted richly in warm yellow or pleasant blue, ceilings that were somehow taller than they should have been, and rooms that were somehow wider than should have been possible. The windows were somehow bigger than they ought to have been too, and the curtains weren’t black on this side, instead somehow white and rather sheer, so they let in plenty of daylight. 

Harry had always thought the inside of Number Eight would be dark, suitable for the sort of person who kept late hours, who never turned their lights on, and never opened their black curtains covering their windows. But Number Eight was… nice. 

It was also strange in other ways. What ought to have been a living room seemed to be a workroom instead, built around a broad table covered in stacks of paper and strange-looking knick-knacks, including an odd-looking microscope made of bronze, a golden set of scales, and a  _ crystal ball  _ swirling with silver clouds. There were many more curious-looking objects lined up along the tall bookshelves against the walls, between the overflowing amount of books that were more-often-than-not stacked almost absentmindedly, in any which way. 

Unfortunately, the man gestured for Harry to follow him to the kitchen at the back of the house before Harry could get a good look at everything. Harry disappointedly followed. 

Only to discover that the man had  _ cauldrons  _ in his kitchen. The man had somehow moved the living room fireplace to where the dining room ought to be and made it four times the size, and three black cauldrons were bubbling away over a crackling fire. More strangely-shaped pots and pans hung from the ceiling, along with strange-looking plants that twitched oddly, and there was a bounty of weird jars and funny bottles on the shelves, holding mysterious ingredients which looked bright and gross and very,  _ very  _ interesting. 

The actual kitchen part was still there, looking almost ordinary, but the stack of thick books on the counter said things like  _ “1001 Recipes to Brew Before You Die”  _ and  _ “Moste Potente Potions”  _ and  _ “Mrs. Boil and Mrs. Bubble’s Cookbook for Trouble”.  _

Harry mouthed the words to himself as he read them, feeling dazed and delighted. 

Magic was real. 

Magic was really  _ real.  _

If Number Eight was magical and the man who lived here was a wizard, then it was possible that every strange dream and odd happening and faint hope Harry had ever had might be true. He’d asked if magic could be learned and the man had invited him inside to see his magical house, which might as well be a different world on the inside. 

This was the best birthday he’d ever had so far, if a day early. 

“Don’t touch anything,” the man said. 

Harry immediately pulled his hands back from where he’d been reaching for a large glass jar neatly labelled  _ “frog eyeballs”.  _ He’d only wanted to tilt the jar slightly to see if there really were frog eyeballs inside. He didn’t want to open it or anything. 

The man was bringing a second dining chair to a little table set up between the kitchen and the cauldrons. “Please sit,” he said, so Harry did. 

Harry then watched the man hastily assemble a tea set from the kitchen cupboards as though he’d never done it before - he kept opening and closing the cupboards uncertainly, looking for pieces he’d missed and then decidedly putting them back again. After the tea set was placed on the table, the man hung a kettle over the fireplace, in between the cauldrons. And then the man knelt beside the fireplace, stripped off his black gloves, rolled up his sleeves, and stuck a hand directly into the fire. 

The man turned over a log with a bare hand, then added a few more logs from a stack and fixed them around, apparently immune to the orange flames licking at his hand. Once he leaned back, an alarmed Harry finally saw that the man’s left forearm was more thin, more than  _ bare  _ \- it was made out of metal and looked like it belonged to a skeleton. It had hinges and parts. Like some sort of machine was attached to him at his elbow. Like the man’s bones were actually made of clockwork. 

The man noticed Harry’s gaping when he straightened and he looked at his mechanical left arm like he’d never seen it before. He quickly rolled his sleeves back down, though he didn’t put the gloves he’d pocketed back on. 

“Excuse me,” he muttered. “I had an accident some years ago.” 

“...What happened?” 

“I’d rather not talk about it,” the man said shortly, as he finally sat down. 

“Sorry,” Harry said, heat creeping up his face again. 

“It’s fine,” the man assured him. “Now, please, what  _ do  _ you know about magic?” 

“...That it’s real?” 

“That’s true. What else?” 

Harry kept miserably silent, his face feeling like he’d stuck his head into the fireplace nearby, but his silence wasn’t out of choice. He didn’t know anything else about magic. Not really. 

“...They must have told you  _ something  _ for your own safety,” the man insisted. 

Harry shook his head. Who was “they”? 

“Your Muggle relatives haven’t told you  _ anything?”  _ the man said, sounding strangled again. 

“No?” 

Harry couldn’t see what the  _ Dursleys  _ of all people would know about magic. 

The man stared at Harry bleakly. “Let me… allow me to understand this properly… your Muggle… your  _ non-magical  _ relatives saw fit to tell you that magic wasn’t real?” 

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, not sure what else they would have told him. 

“...What… what did they tell you about your parents?” 

Harry was beginning to feel very stupid indeed here. It was an awful feeling. He had no idea what his dead parents had to do with any of this or why the strange man was asking after them. No one ever had anything good to say about his dead parents, if anything. 

“What do you know about your parents?” the man asked again. 

“...What do  _ you  _ know about  _ my _ parents?” Harry demanded of the man. 

The man paused, taken aback, before he slowly said, “I know that your father was a wizard named James Potter, the only son of the wizard Fleamont and the witch Euphemia Potter. I know that your mother was a witch named Lily Evans, the second daughter of the Muggles Robert and Rosemary Evans. My apologies, but I _ must _ know what your aunt has told you about how your parents died.” 

“They… they were what?” 

“Has your aunt told you  _ how your parents died?”  _

“A car crash?” 

“It is  _ vital  _ that- pardon?” 

“My parents died in a car crash,” Harry repeated helplessly. It felt like the world had fallen out from underneath him; the only thing keeping him in place was the chair he’s sitting on. “They were magic? My parents were a wizard and a witch? Like you?” 

The man sat back in his chair, looking almost as shocked as Harry felt. 

“Did… did you know them?” Harry asked. Already it seemed as though this man knew so much more about his family than he did. “Did you meet them?” 

“I… yes.” 

There were no pictures of Harry’s parents in Number Four. He had no idea what they had looked like and, if not for some derisive comments from Uncle Vernon’s awful sister Marge provoking conversation, Harry might have never even learned their names. 

He hadn’t even known any of his grandparents’ names either, even the ones he shared with his cousin Dudley. Aunt Petunia only had one picture of her parents in the house, as far as Harry knew, and she kept it in the master bedroom, where Harry and Dudley  _ both  _ weren’t allowed to go for any reason. According to Aunt Petunia, it was due to reckless drivers like Harry’s parents that Dudley only had one set of grandparents, Vernon and Marge’s parents, and that was that. According to Aunt Petunia, it was Harry’s parents own fault that he was an orphan and had no other family. 

“My parents were magic? Like you?” Harry repeated. 

In this moment, it felt like Harry was having every feeling in the world at once. His head might break open with all this new information, while simultaneously trying to figure out a new and strange kind of maths. If Harry’s dad had been magic… and if Harry’s mum had been magic too, then… 

“Am  _ I  _ magic?” Harry whispered. 

“...Yes,” the man said quietly. “Yes, you’re a wizard.” 

“Does that mean I  _ can  _ learn magic?” 

“You… already have magic.” 

“I  _ do?”  _

“Yes, you do.” The man cleared his throat. “You will, at a later point, be taught how to control your magic and learn many magical spells.” 

That sounded a little too good to be true, just like Number Eight’s doorstep. Harry definitely wasn’t going to forget turning nine this year. He was going to spend tomorrow, his ninth birthday, as a wizard. 

“Wow,” he said. 

“...Quite,” the man agreed. 

Harry looked at the man in wonder, before he realized that the man hadn’t said  _ how  _ Harry was going to learn how to do magic. That seemed like an important detail. He was pretty sure they didn’t teach it at school alongside maths and spelling. 

“Your parents didn’t die in a car crash,” the man said. 

Harry stared at him. “...What?” 

“...My apologies, I perhaps should have phrased that more gently. It appears… I’m afraid… that your mother’s sister has been lying to you about many important things. Things which are- things which I would have believe are- things which are really quite vital to your safety.” 

Out of the whirl of new maths happening inside Harry’s head, an unpleasant realization was spat to the forefront. 

“Aunt Petunia  _ knew?  _ She  _ knows  _ about magic?” 

“I was under the impression that she did,” the man answered, still with that apologetic tone. “I had… never considered the possibility that she might  _ not  _ know, which still seems… highly unlikely. It’s not illegal for Muggleborn witches and wizards to tell their immediate family members about magic, and I was under the impression that Lily Evans-” The man shook his head and leaned forward. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but your aunt also occasionally leaves you in the care of the only magical-adjacent individual in the neighbourhood, which suggests-” 

“What?” 

“Arabella Figg,” the man clarified. 

It took Harry’s mind a moment to do the new maths in that sentence. 

“Mrs. Figg is a  _ witch?”  _

That would, at least, explain all the cats. 

“No,” the man said quickly. Then he said, “Yes.” Then he said, “She’s… in-between being a witch and a Muggle. She’s a Squib. If there is another word for it, I haven’t heard it, but it essentially means that though she was born to magical parents and retains some magical traits, she can’t do magic herself.” 

“Oh,” Harry said. “Is that what I am?” 

The man looked confused for a moment. “I… doubt it,” he said finally. 

Harry didn’t know whether to sag with relief or to throw up already. He was having far too many feelings right now and he didn’t know what to do with any of them besides be sick. All he could do was sit in his hair, hold on to the table while the world moved around him, and stare at the strange man sitting across from him. 

“...I shouldn’t be the one telling you any of this. This is ridiculous,” the man said, more to himself than to Harry, like he couldn’t believe this was happening to him. “Even if you do live with Muggles, they should- They  _ say  _ that ignorance is bliss, of course, but surely it’s far more dangerous to be caught unaware. There are  _ some  _ things you should have been told for your own safety. You should have known at least enough to have stayed far,  _ far  _ away from the likes of  _ me.”  _

“...Why?” Harry asked. 

The man blinked at him. He opened his mouth, then hesitated. 

“There are wizards… who are not good,” he began finally. “There are wizards who are very dangerous. They believe in things that are… wicked and untrue, and they don’t like people who are different or who believe differently.” 

“What do they believe?” 

The man stared at him again, before he cleared his throat. “I… allow me to start from the beginning,” he said, “because I believe it is important for you to know this.” 

“Alright?” 

“I will proceed under the assumption that you have never heard anything about magic before - that you are essentially Muggleborn. You must ask me questions if you do not understand.” 

“Alright.” 

“Magic is real, but witches and witches keep themselves secret from Muggles - people without magic - because it has been agreed that things are safer this way. There are Muggles who hate people with magic, because they’re scared of magic. And there are some witches and wizards who hate people who don’t have magic, because they think they’re better than other people. Do you understand?” 

“I think so.” 

“Your father was a wizard, born to magical parents. Your mother was a witch, but she was born to Muggle parents, which happens sometimes. Just as, sometimes, magical parents have Squibs for children.” 

“Like Mrs. Figg?” 

“Yes, like Arabella Figg. Now, when she was eleven, your mother was invited to attend a magical school called Hogwarts, where she learned magic, and there she met your father. When you are eleven, you are almost certainly going to receive an invitation to attend Hogwarts as well.” 

“So I can learn magic too?” 

“Yes.” 

Eleven seemed an eternity away to Harry. He couldn’t wait that long. 

“Could I go now?” he asked. 

The man raised his eyebrows and then… he smiled at Harry. It was a small smile, the corners of his mouth barely turned up, but the expression changed the man’s grim face greatly while it lasted. Unfortunately, it didn’t last for very long. 

“No, I’m afraid not,” the man said. 

“Why not?” 

“No one gets to go early.” The man then admitted, “I wanted to go early too.” 

“You went to magic school?” 

“Hogwarts. Yes.” 

“What’s it like there?” Harry asked wondrously. 

“It’s… interesting. It’s beautiful, old, and deeply magical, and there is no place in the world quite the same. You will most likely enjoy it. However, it is also quite dangerous at times, and there is something very important you must know before you go: not all the witches and wizards who attend Hogwarts will be safe to consider your friend. There are some you will have to assume are, in fact, your enemies.” 

“...What?” 

To Harry’s knowledge, he had never had an enemy before. It sounded frightening. 

“Have you heard about the man called ‘You-Know-Who’ or ‘the Dark Lord’?” the man asked, in almost hushed tones, as though even now he was concerned about being overheard. “Has anyone warned you to look out for him or his followers?” 

Harry shook his head. 

“Not even your aunt?” the man pressed. 

“No.” 

“...Do you recall how I told you there are some witches and wizards who hate people who don’t have magic?” 

“Yeah.” 

“There are some witches and wizards who think that magical people should rule over or get rid of people who don’t have magic - supposedly because they’re tired of hiding. There was one man, eight years ago, a very powerful wizard, who believed these things and tried to take over the country. He called himself…” The man trailed off, face twisting. 

“What?” 

“I can’t say the name. People can’t say the name. It’s too dangerous.” 

“Dangerous?” 

“Many times, the Dark Lord put a spell on the name, to hunt down anyone who dared to say it. I can’t risk it.” The man stood up, leaving the room, and came back with a piece of paper, where he wrote down two names in large block letters. Then he pointed at the first name, which said: 

###  VOLDEMORT. 

“Vol-” 

_ “Don’t say it!”  _ the man hissed. 

“Sorry!” 

“It’s not safe to say it!” 

“Sorry!” 

“Call him ‘You-Know-Who’,” the man insisted urgently. “Some people also called him ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’ because he  _ must not  _ be named. It must be assumed there is a Taboo on his name, a spell which allows him and his followers to find you.” 

“Alright,” Harry said. “You-Know-Who. Okay.” 

The man searched his face, then nodded. “His real name, which he didn’t want anyone to know, was this…” He pointed to the second name on the paper, which said: 

###  TOM RIDDLE. 

“...Is it dangerous to say that one too?” 

“Possibly. Don’t risk it.” 

“Alright.” 

“Just call him ‘You-Know-Who’. The Dark Lord was fiercely protective of his past, so it’s dangerous to admit to knowing his real name. He reinvented himself to disguise the fact that his father was a Muggle, of the same name. He hated all Muggles and Muggleborns.” 

“Oh,” Harry said. “...What’s a Muggleborn?” 

“Witches and wizards born to Muggle parents. Like your mother.” 

“Oh.” 

Harry’s insides felt even heavier than before. 

“The Dark Lord had many followers who shared his beliefs,” the man continued. “Eight years ago, there was a war happening among witches and wizards, kept secret from Muggles, between the Dark Lord’s followers and the people who believed he was wrong. Your parents, James Potter and Lily Evans, knew that the Dark Lord and what he wanted was wrong. They fought him and his followers, until they had to go into hiding, because they were going to have a baby and they wanted to keep you safe from him.” 

“...Is it… bad to be Muggleborn?” Harry asked uncertainly, since his mum had been Muggleborn and he was apparently as good as a person without magic. 

“No,” the man said quickly. “It’s no one’s fault that they’re born to Muggle parents.” 

“Oh. Alright.” 

“Your mother was a brilliant witch. The Dark Lord was an evil man who lied to everyone because he wanted power. He hated anyone who tried to stop him from doing what he wanted, like your parents.” 

Harry had another question, but he didn’t want to ask it. If his parents hadn’t died in a car crash like the Dursleys had told him, then… “What happened to them?” 

The man looked uncomfortable and said again, “Your aunt really should have told you this.” 

“Well, she didn’t,” Harry said shortly. 

“No, apparently not.” 

“Please, what happened to them?” 

“...On Halloween of 1981 - when you were one year old - the Dark Lord found your parents’ hiding place. He… murdered Lily Evans and James Potter with evil magic. Then he tried to kill you too, but… something strange happened that night, and the Unforgivable Curse didn’t work. The Dark Lord vanished and everyone assumed that he had died. It is regarded as something of a miracle among wizards… and a great tragedy, of course.” 

The man then raised his left hand and tapped a metal finger against his own forehead, and said, “You lived and were left with only a scar.” 

Harry’s hand went to his own forehead, to the funny lightning-bolt scar that had been the only part of his appearance he’d almost liked. He’d always thought he’d gotten it in the car accident that had killed his parents, if he hadn’t always had it. He’d never guessed that his scar had been the result of  _ evil magic.  _

“That night made you famous,” the man continued, lowering his hand again. “Witches and wizards across the country call you ‘The Boy-Who-Lived’ and give you credit for defeating the Dark Lord. After the Dark Lord vanished, his followers’ ranks fell apart swiftly and the war ended. Everyone knows the story. Everyone knows to look for your scar. You’re a hero to many witches and wizards out there.” 

“But I was just a baby! I don’t remember any of this!” 

“Yes, but no one knows what really happened that night. It could have been one of your parents who came up with new and dangerous magic - most likely it was your mother or father - but most witches and wizards think it was something about you.” 

“Is that… is this why people have come up to me before?” 

The man stiffened. “Pardon?” 

“Strange people have come up to me before and thanked me, in shops or on the street,” Harry explained. “They want to shake my hand or hug me or something. One funny man  _ bowed  _ to me once. Is it because they think I…  _ defeated  _ this Dark Lord?” 

“...Most likely, yes.” 

Suddenly, all those interactions made a lot more sense than they had in the moment. 

The man looked like he wanted to say something else. 

“What?” 

“Unfortunately, not every witch and wizard thinks you’re a hero. Some people were very,  _ very  _ unhappy when the Dark Lord vanished. Not all of his followers went to prison. Fortunately, these witches and wizards aren’t the sort of people to frequent Muggle shops or walk down the street among Muggles, but… people talk. If certain people find you, if they recognize you from your lightning-bolt scar, if they notice that you’re unprotected… Harry, they  _ will not hesitate  _ to hurt you or steal you away.” 

Harry froze in fear, watching the man’s metal fingers clench and unclench. 

“It’s also… very likely that the Dark Lord isn’t dead.” 

“He’s- he’s  _ not?”  _

“He’s gone for now. Most people think he’s dead, but… he may return someday. When he does, he’ll want to take revenge on  _ everyone  _ who got in his way during the war. The likes of you and me are going to be  _ very high  _ on his list.” 

“What… what did  _ you  _ do?” 

The man was silent at first, before he finally admitted, “I tried to kill him.” 

“Oh,” Harry said breathlessly. 

The man nodded. Harry had nothing else to say and it appeared that the man didn’t either; they stared at each other, each apparently unable to speak next. Eventually, the man stood up, took the kettle off the fireplace, and served them both tea. Harry stared at the teacup set in front of him, feeling sick, and the man stood awkwardly beside the bubbling cauldrons of his fireplace. 

“You… may be too young to hear these things,” the man said finally. “I am undoubtedly not the right person to tell you any of this. However, I… don’t believe it’s safe for you to be unaware of the threats that exist out in the world. Admittedly, Privet Drive is an  _ extremely  _ safe place for you - at least from magic, I’m… not very well-versed in the ways of Muggles or Muggle life. I… don’t take part in it… or pay it much attention.” 

Harry thought, a little hysterically, that was a bit of an understatement. 

“I’ve become complacent,” the man announced. “I have been… infrequently at home lately and concentrated on avoiding a very specific sort of attention. I forgot that you would be able to see past the spells I use to hide this house from Muggles.” 

“What… what am I supposed to do if I meet an evil wizard?” Harry asked. 

“Stay with the Muggles. Or with Arabella Figg. They are- they are the only guardians I’ve ever seen here.” The man’s voice dropped to a mutter as he added, “Though clearly I’ve made grave assumptions as to their abilities and sense. You seemed… well enough…  _ alive… _ and I was so focused on my work I didn’t think to look further.” 

The man looked at him again. “Don’t follow another wizard  _ anywhere,  _ even if they claim to know you, your relatives, your parents, or even  _ me.  _ Draw attention to yourself by screaming and struggling if they try to force you to go anywhere or do anything. If you see a wand,  _ run away.  _ Accidental magic, if you can manage it, may help you get away or alert the Ministry of Magic, who will hopefully come to help you.” 

Harry felt even sicker now. He didn’t know what the Ministry of Magic was. 

The man seemed to notice Harry’s stricken expression and paused. 

“I can’t do any magic,” Harry said helplessly. 

“I… well…” the man trailed off again. “I could… perhaps give you something to protect yourself in the case of an emergency. It’s very likely that you won’t ever have to use magic to defend yourself, as the Dark Lord’s followers really don’t come to Muggle areas and they’ve spent the past eight years thinking the Dark Lord is dead…” 

Harry stared at the man, afraid and hopeful. 

“But it is only reasonable to refuse to give them any chances,” the man said, more determinedly. “Frankly, in hindsight, I find it absurd that you haven’t been given  _ anything  _ for your protection already. Although that pales against the fact that you weren’t even told about the existence of  _ magic,  _ as though ignorance is any real protection.” He seemed to be muttering more to himself than to Harry again. “I’ll figure out  _ something  _ for you to use before I leave…” 

“Before you  _ leave?  _ Where are you going?” 

The man paused again. “I… Well, I don’t know yet. However, it seems beyond time that I keep moving. I never meant to stop here and clearly I’ve become too complacent.” 

Harry still didn’t really know what this meant and it must have shown. 

“I made enemies of all the Dark Lord’s followers when I tried to kill him,” the man explained, beginning to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace. “Once he found out… for over a year, I was on the run, and I’ve been in hiding ever since. I can’t trust that one of his followers wouldn’t kill me even now. 

“However, in recent years, ever since that fateful night the Dark Lord vanished and I followed McGo- someone here in secret to Privet Drive to find out more… and never left - for I had nowhere else to go and here was as good a place to stop as anywhere else - I have clearly been less careful as I should have been. Someone besides you may have noticed something strange.” 

“...Like who?” Harry asked. 

“Mrs. Figg, for example, may suspect that there is something off about this house by now, though I have gone to  _ extensive  _ lengths to avoid her and her absurd number of Kneazles. If she should tell anyone I’m alive… worse, if I am  _ mistaken  _ for my br- no. No, it will be the best that I move on and start over somewhere more isolated. I didn’t think to hide from  _ you.  _ I’ve been discovered; I must move on.” 

“Oh,” Harry said. 

He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know what he was feeling now. 

“Please… drink the tea…” the man said awkwardly. “I hope it will make you feel better. I’m… sorry that I had to be the one to tell you these things. I thought that your aunt would educate you so that you could appropriately protect yourself.” 

If Aunt Petunia knew about any of this, Harry thought she probably wouldn’t  _ ever  _ tell him if she could help it. 

He drank his tea. It tasted better than he thought it would and the heat of the drink was comforting, spreading through his bones and across his skin, like he was drinking a puddle of sunlight. It was probably magical tea, Harry guessed. He hoped it didn’t have any frog eyeballs or any other weird things in it. 

“I’m sorry,” the man said again. 

It was very strange being apologized to by the strange man from Number Eight. 

“It’s alright,” Harry said, though he wasn’t sure if it was. 

Were you supposed to thank someone who’d just told you that your parents had actually been murdered by evil magic? It had happened eight years ago, but somehow to Harry it felt as though it had just happened. He hadn’t thought about his parents at all yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before that, but today they seemed much realer. He hadn’t really known what he’d lost until just now. 

“You must promise me that you won’t tell anyone about me, even after I’m gone,” the man said quietly. “There are people who are still… very angry with me.” 

“Alright,” Harry agreed. 

“It’s better for my work if no one knows that I’m alive.” 

“What is your work?” 

He’d often wondered what sort of business would have someone sneaking out at night and on foot. He’d guessed it might be something secret, if the man made sure no one else saw him. He’d guessed it might be something strange in the way that Number Eight was strange - something  _ magic,  _ he knew now - if no one else could remember him. Now it looked like he’d been quite right on both counts, though the details were beyond him. 

“I’m attempting to make sure that the Dark Lord stays as dead as people think he is,” the man answered finally. “When my work is done, he’ll never be able to return.” 

“And… people would try to stop you, if they knew?” 

“Most likely, yes.” 

“Even Mrs. Figg?” Harry said disbelievingly. 

The man snorted, before he slapped a hand (his normal hand) over his face. He seemed surprised at himself for making the noise. “Excuse me,” he said. “No, I meant the Dark Lord’s followers. I don’t believe Arabella Figg would try to stop me. However, I’m… concerned that she might tell the wrong people about me, or someone who might tell the wrong people about me - perhaps by accident. The fewer people who know a secret, the easier it is to keep it.” 

“I won’t tell anyone,” Harry promised. 

“...Thank you,” the man said. 

Harry didn’t want the magical doorstep of Number Eight to go away. He didn’t want this man to go anywhere either, even though he was strange and said frightening things, because he was the only one who had ever answered any of Harry’s questions. Aunt Petunia had lied to him about his parents.  _ Mrs. Figg  _ had never told him anything about magic. If this strange man left, Harry would be the only strange person on Privet Drive - he would be the  _ strangest  _ person on Privet Drive again - and that mattered to him for a reason he couldn’t quite name. 

“Do you have to go right away?” Harry asked. 

The man considered this question carefully. “No. Not right away,” he admitted. “I’ve taken greater care to avoid Arabella Figg and her Kneazles than anyone else in this neighbourhood. Moving, however, is a sensible precaution regardless. I never should have settled here, though it  _ is  _ one of the last places anyone would ever think to look for me; I rightly should have relocated several times over by now, really.” 

“Won’t you have to do magic on your new house all over again?” 

“I… Yes, I will,” the man said, looking surprised. “That is… quite intuitive of you. It is true that there is a certain… additional degree of safety in houses that have been allowed to become homes…” 

“Become homes?” Harry repeated. 

“Belonged to one family or been otherwise set to one purpose for a longer period of time,” the man answered automatically. “It  _ will  _ take a lot of effort to raise new wards. These ones are quite well done, if I do say so myself, to allow for any magic so close to an underage wizard. They’ll also take a great deal of effort to erase. It will be very difficult to completely erase my presence here on Privet Drive after so long…” 

The man looked very thoughtful now, in a panicked sort of way. 

“You don’t have to go,” Harry said. 

The man’s focus snapped back to Harry. “Staying so close to you has always been a great risk to me, though… it is true that I rightly should have been discovered years ago. I’ll see to it that you have some way to protect yourself before I leave… given how  _ lax  _ your watchers apparently are… though you must promise never to misuse it or tell anyone who gave it to you.” 

Harry nodded warily. 

“Do… do you have any further questions?” the man asked. “I don’t recommend asking your Muggle relatives anything, if they’ve been keeping such secrets from you, and as Muggles they aren’t likely to know much. You must have many questions.” 

Harry had enough curiosity for a hundred questions, for a  _ thousand  _ questions, but his curiosity was formless and wordless and overwhelming. He didn’t know enough about magic to know what to ask. He could also only ask one question at at time and the first question that did manage to bubble up to the surface, fully formed, was this: 

“What’s your name?” 

The man blinked. “Oh,” he said. “I… haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m afraid that I… it might be safer not to tell you. If you don’t know it, then you can hardly accidentally share it to the wrong people, and I believe my name may have been Taboo for a time, very briefly, nine years ago, and I shouldn’t like you to take the risk…” The man trailed off, then finally decided, “You may call me... R.” 

“R?” Harry repeated. “Like… the letter?” 

“Yes, like the letter,” the man agreed. “My apologies, but it truly is safer if you don’t know. I… would give you more if I could, but… I have made that mistake once before… and I would rather not lie to you by giving you a false name. One letter is all I have to give until my work is done and even that is.. dangerous.” 

“Oh. Alright.” 

There was no way Harry could force the man, R, into sharing his full name, though now he only felt even more curious. It made a strange sort of sense, though, in his head. Of course the strange man who secretly lived at Number Eight and had a secret business had a secret name. 

“Um… you know my name, I guess? I’m Harry Potter,” Harry said, because the man had known his parents, before something awful occurred to him. “Could… if people know me… is it dangerous to say  _ my  _ name?” 

The man, R, looked surprised again, briefly, but then he only smiled approvingly. “A pleasure to meet you, Mister Potter, and I’m glad to inform you that it is quite safe to say your name.” 

“Oh, good.” 

“A Taboo only works well if a certain word or phrase is relatively rarely said. Your name is commonly said among wizards and… also quite common sounding… you are not the only Harry Potter in England… so it is likely commonly said among Muggles as well. No one will be able to find you by your name in the crowd.” 

“That’s good,” Harry said again, relieved. 

“Another clever observation, Mister Potter,” R said, still smiling. 

It really did change his face enormously. 

A warm feeling rose again in Harry’s face, but it didn’t have the same curdle of shame. “Thanks,” he said uncertainly. “It’s, um- just ‘Harry’ is fine.” 

“Just ‘Harry’ then,” the man called R agreed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Harry, despite everything.” 


	3. The Most Magical Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Defense Against the Dark Arts sounded like an extremely good idea to Harry at the moment. He hoped it was what it sounded like, because it sounded like he’d need that one. 

They sat there in silence for a while, as Harry sipped at his probably-magical tea and tried desperately to put in real questions together. He was allowed, the man called R had said, and the man seemed to be waiting for them. R, apparently remembering that he had also poured himself a cup of tea, had dutifully put himself to drinking it. It seemed to Harry like they were both trying not to stare at the other. 

“What do you learn at magic school?” Harry asked finally. 

That seemed like a safe sort of question. 

“At Hogwarts? The basics of most important subjects. Anything you wish, if you apply yourself while you’re there,” the man called R answered immediately. “As a first year, your classes should be… Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Herbology, History of Magic, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Unless they’ve changed the curriculum since I left, but Hogwarts… seems to resist sudden changes.” 

Defense Against the Dark Arts sounded like an extremely good idea to Harry at the moment. He hoped it was what it sounded like, because it sounded like he’d need that one. 

“Where is it? Hogwarts?” 

“The school is an enormous castle hidden in the mountains of Scotland.” 

“Oh.” 

That explained why there weren’t many other wizards nearby for Harry to notice. 

“They’ll have you take a special train from King’s Cross Station in London to a station in Hogsmeade, which is a magical village close to the castle,” R explained. “Then they’ll have you take boats across the Great Lake, while the upper-years take the carriages to get there first. It’s traditional.” 

Harry nodded like he understood. That sounded very magical. 

“How d’you hide a magic castle?” 

“...Much the same way that I’ve hidden my home. There are spells which make the castle itself look like ruins from a distance. If any Muggles come close to the castle grounds, which are quite large including the Forbidden Forest, the Great Lake, and much of the land surrounding Hogsmeade - they find themselves being turned away from some reason or another. They’ll turn in circles on the spot if they persist, though few do.” 

Harry thought of the way Number Eight made everyone suddenly remember emergencies whenever they tried to follow him onto the property. He understood that a little better. It sounded like it would be difficult to go back and forth from Scotland every day, so people probably lived there, and the mere idea of living away from the Dursleys for most of the year filled him with delighted anticipation. 

“Is it a boarding school?” 

“Yes. The Hogwarts Express always leaves on September 1st. Term ends for the summer holidays in late June. If you choose not to return home for Christmas or Easter, you’ll spend nearly ten months of the year there.” 

Harry could hardly wait. 

Unfortunately, he remembered here that boarding schools were usually expensive. Aunt Petunia had cited the expense of boarding schools at length whenever she was confronted with the possibility that someone might someday force her dear Duddikins to live away from home. There was no way that the Dursleys, who complained constantly about how much Harry cost them to keep, would pay for him to go to a magic boarding school. 

“I don’t have any money to pay for magic boarding school,” Harry panicked. 

“Your parents will have left you money for Hogwarts,” R replied, unconcerned, as though this was obvious. He was much more confident about the subject matter now. “The Potters were very well-off. You’ll have a family vault full of gold waiting for you with Gringotts Bank, which is a bank for wizards located underneath London. Your paternal grandfather - your father’s father, that is - owned a successful potions company.” 

Harry’s first thought was wordless amazement. He had _money?_

Harry’s second thought was that the Dursleys could _never know_ about this. 

His third thought had him looking at the great black cauldrons bubbling away over the wide fireplace, at the shelves full of strange jars holding stranger ingredients, all so obviously _magic._ He wanted to learn how to make magical potions very, very much. 

“Did my dad make potions too?” 

“...No.” 

“What did he do? He did _something,_ right?” 

“Your parents were both busy fighting and then hiding from the Dark Lord,” R said, awkwardly again. “They were quite young when the war began. I don’t know what careers they might have had if they had lived.” Then he hastened to assure Harry: “I’ve spent my life the same way ever since I left school. It’s… difficult to hold down an ordinary job when you’re hiding from the Dark Lord.” 

“Oh,” Harry said again. 

He supposed that his Uncle Vernon and his Aunt Petunia probably wouldn’t consider “fighting an evil wizard” a _real_ job, if they’d even known about that. Not that Harry really cared about the Dursleys’ opinions, especially after learning that they may have been lying to him for all his life. Clearly, they hardly knew anything about Harry’s parents. 

“What were my parents like?” Harry asked. “You knew them, right?” 

“I… I did. Not well, unfortunately.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“I didn’t have much opportunity to speak to them. They were a year older than I was and we… weren’t friends. I knew _of_ them and I saw them around the school frequently, but we… moved in different circles.” 

“Oh,” Harry said, disappointed. 

“James Potter and Lily Evans were the Head Boy and Head Girl of their year, however,” R added quickly. “They were a powerful and skilled wizard and witch, brilliantly talented students, much admired by their professors, and… each quite fierce in their convictions. They thought it was important to stand up for what they believed in and against evil, even at great risk to their own safety. They… could have been considered ideal Gryffindors in that way.” 

“Gryffindors?” 

“Ah, excuse me. Gryffindor is one of the four houses of Hogwarts. Every student, in their first year, is Sorted into either Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin house. The houses are named for the four founders of the school. Your parents were both in Gryffindor house, which is… celebrated for its courage and chivalry… for bravery, essentially.” 

Harry liked the idea that his parents had really been brave and good. He liked the idea that Lily and James Potter had been brilliant and powerful and well-liked. The spectre of past lies lingered, however, and the spectre of the evil wizard who’d killed them loomed. 

“They weren’t drunks, right?” 

It didn’t sound like it, but Uncle Vernon and his sister had been so _vicious_. 

R frowned at him. “I… pardon?” 

“My aunt and uncle said-” 

“I think it can be safely assumed at this point that everything your Muggle aunt and uncle tell you isn’t true,” R snapped, before he rubbed a hand (his normal hand, his not-metal, not-skeleton hand) over his face. “My apologies. _No,_ your parents weren’t drunks. I had… I had no idea that the situation with your Muggle relatives was this dire. I haven’t- I thought-” He lowered his hand and looked at Harry warily. “Do you _like_ your aunt and uncle? Are they… good to you?” 

Harry shifted in his seat. “Well, _they_ say they are…” 

Vernon and Petunia Dursley said that they were much better to him than he deserved. 

“What do _you_ say?” R demanded. 

“Um, no,” Harry admitted quietly, which was a struggle to get out but extremely freeing to say. “I don’t like them very much. They… don’t like anything that isn’t really… normal.” And Harry, it didn’t need to be said, was not that. 

The man across from him closed his eyes, breathing deeply. 

Harry felt like he’d made a mistake. “It’s not that bad,” he said hastily. “I’ve got a lot, really.” 

“My apologies,” R interrupted, his eyes snapping open. “I simply… understood your sentiment very well. I had… a difficult relationship with my own family. My parents had a very particular idea of normal as well.” 

Harry’s mouth, open in surprise, snapped shut. 

“I haven’t been paying as much attention to your Muggle family as I clearly should have. I thought that Lily Evans’ _sister_ must- there are cultural differences and my attention was elsewhere- and for quite a while I was in no place to act, but… that is hardly an excuse.” R shook his head and refocused on Harry, saying flatly, “Harry, you may assume from this moment onwards that everything your Muggle relatives have told you or will tell you about your parents and about magic is completely untrue.” 

“Alright,” Harry said, having already decided to do this. 

It felt very nice to have someone say that he was right and the Dursleys were wrong, for once, instead of the other way around. He’d always suspected that things were terribly unfair here on Privet Drive, of course, but it was different to have someone else confirm it. That it was a real wizard who agreed with him was even better. 

“Is… there anything else I can answer for you?” R asked, getting to his feet and turning away quite quickly, carrying to teacup into the kitchen. “Or is that all?” 

_Everything, I’d like to know everything, please,_ Harry wanted to say, but it looked like R was going to ask him to leave Number Eight now. He quickly got to his feet and well and said instead, “I can do the dishes for you!” 

R looked over his shoulder, confused. “Pardon?” 

“I can do the dishes,” Harry repeated, reaching for the tea set and picking up the tray. If he made himself helpful, then-

R came back and, with his metal hand, pressed gently down on the tray, forcing Harry to put it down again. “That’s not necessary,” he said, still clearly confused. “I can do them myself. Do you have any other questions? About magic? Your parents? Hogwarts?” 

Harry stared up at him, directionless and desperate. 

“You-Know-Who?” R tried. “That’s fine as well.” 

“...Do I have to go now?” 

Understanding dawned on the man’s face. “I… I’m not making you leave quite yet,” he said, putting down his teacup. “I simply stood up to… check on one of my cauldrons. You may- you _will_ have to return to your aunt and uncle’s house eventually, otherwise someone will come to investigate, but… seeing that you likely intended to spend your afternoon on my doorstep… you may as well stay a while longer and ask your questions.” 

“Oh,” Harry said. “Thank you.” 

“You’re… quite welcome. Please don’t touch anything without my permission, however. I have… some items in this house that are quite unsafe, you see. I wasn’t expecting- children certainly shouldn’t be touching them. They’re quite dangerous.” 

“Alright,” Harry agreed. He’d be content with just looking, he thought, or at least try his very best to be. Any magic was better than nothing. 

~

Harry stayed all afternoon in Number Eight and it was easily the best afternoon he’d had in a long time. Almost anywhere was better than Number Four, Privet Drive, simply by virtue of not being Number Four, Privet Drive, but Number Eight was actually _nice._ It was also different and frankly, after eight boring years on Privet Drive, different would have been nice enough. 

Number Eight didn’t have the Dursleys and here they couldn’t get at him. 

Number Eight was warm and strange and sunny, with interesting sights and interesting smells. It really was like another world, completely separate to the dull, pale reality of the rest of Privet Drive. 

Finally, Number Eight had the strange, magical man who called himself R. 

R served him tea endlessly and, when it occurred to him that Harry might be hungry, jumped to his feet and offered plates of food like he thought Harry might immediately starve if he didn’t eat _something._ He only lost the panicked expression when Harry finally gave in to his rumbling stomach and gingerly helped himself. The more Harry ate, the less panicked and more satisfied R looked, and Harry was more than happy to eat his fill of toast and fruit and biscuits and chocolate. So, despite the man’s strange and somewhat frightening appearance, it reminded Harry a little of being minded by Mrs. Figg, minus all the cats. 

Unlike being minded by Mrs. Figg, R answered all of Harry’s questions. He answered questions before Harry asked and questions Harry didn’t even know he had. If R didn’t know the answer to a question, he said so, after a little mumbling, and if he couldn’t say, he said that too, after a little more mumbling. However, to Harry, the man seemed to have a ready answer for everything, especially everything there was to know about _magic._

At least, he seemed to know everything _important_ about magic, which was how to not get killed by evil magic or evil wizards. 

For example, R explained to Harry that most witches and wizards used _wands_ for their magic - they waved them and said funny words - so Harry should look out for anyone pointing a stick in his direction. R instructed him to run away from all wands on sight, no matter what, but if Harry couldn’t get away, the next best thing to do was break a witch or wizard’s wand immediately. R assured him that wands were easy to snap, because they were really just sticks, and most wizards were useless without one. 

“How do I get their wand?” Harry asked. 

“Kick them,” R suggested, “or bite them. Most wizards don’t expect that.” 

“...Alright.” 

When Harry was eleven, R promised, he would be allowed his own wand, though he would only be officially allowed to use magic at school. Underage magic was monitored, R explained, by the Ministry of Magic, which was the government for wizards. 

The main Ministry building was hidden in London. As Harry was the only known wizard in the area of Privet Drive, all notable magic that happened here would be traced back to him by the Ministry, which meant “all wanded magic and any magic that got Muggles talking about magic being real”. It was the Ministry’s job to keep the Muggles (who didn’t have Muggleborn relatives) from learning about magic. 

“Number Eight is protected by carefully constructed spells,” R said, then admitted, “It likely helped that the Ministry considers you too young to be capable of ‘real’ magic yet.” 

“So you really would have to do all that magic again if you moved.” Harry really thought R had a perfectly good house here and Harry didn’t plan on telling anyone about it. 

“...Yes.” 

“What sort of trouble do I get in if I use magic outside of school? Do I get in trouble with the wizard government? Even if I only do magic by accident?” 

“You have nothing to fear, especially not if by accident or in an emergency,” R assured him. “You’re a child and you’re famous - the Ministry will erase any troublesome Muggle memories and give you a slap on the wrist at most - it will look very bad for the Ministry if something happened to you.” 

“...What might happen to me?” 

“Here on Privet Drive?” R scoffed. “Very little is likely to happen _here.”_

“Nothing happens here,” Harry agreed. 

R nodded, then frowned. “Though it pays to be vigilant when you and I have the enemies we do. If you are backed into a corner and threatened, Harry, you should use magic to defend yourself without hesitation. It is best to be alive and unhurt, rather than worry about overzealous rules.” 

“...Alright. I won’t, er, get thrown out of school or anything?” 

“No, that’s very unlikely. That doesn’t happen to- well, that won’t happen to you. If that happens, you can attend a different school, or even leave the country for another school, but I think that there are many people who would gladly take your case. For the sake of establishing precedence for the less fortunate, if nothing else.” 

“Er, what does that mean?” 

“...There are people who will argue on your behalf, if you are treated unfairly by the Ministry. I’m sure that friends of your parents, for example, will object if you are treated badly.” 

Harry stared disbelievingly, having never truly heard of his parents having _friends_ in his life. Well, he might’ve heard in passing from his Aunt Petunia, his Uncle Vernon, or Vernon’s sister Marge, that they thought his parents had been a “bad sort” of people who had fallen in with a “bad crowd” of people, but that was different. 

“Have I told you about Apparition yet?” 

“Er, no.” 

“Most witches and wizards aren’t likely to do magic in Muggle spaces, in front of Muggles, so you must avoid being isolated when you leave this neighbourhood. You _must not_ let anyone take you anywhere alone.” 

“Alright. What’s Apparition?” 

R explained that wizards could disappear and appear somewhere else at will. 

“Oh, teleporting,” Harry said understandingly. 

“...Muggles haven’t invented technology capable of this, have they?” R asked, sounding like he was trying not to panic about the possibility. 

“No, but one of the characters in Dudley’s games can do that.” 

“Ah, fiction,” R said, looking very relieved. 

R went on to explain that Apparition was one of the things the Ministry could trace, though they couldn’t tell who was Apparating or whether or not they were licensed. (“It’s a case of having a license if you happen to get caught,” R said.) R travelled away from Privet Drive to do most of his Apparating, and he always Apparated in short jumps to avoid anyone following him, rather than establish a pattern and give the Ministry something to investigate. He made Harry promise not to let anyone he suspected to be a wizard touch him, because then they could use Side-Along Apparition to kidnap him, even though Apparition apparently wasn’t healthy for minors. Evil wizards wouldn’t care that teleporting was bad for children. 

R then explained that Harry shouldn’t touch anything a stranger might give him either, because it might be a “Portkey”, which could also teleport people. Any object might also apparently be cursed and the surest way to avoid a curse was not to touch anything. If Harry was forced to touch something that might be cursed, R insisted, he ought to use gloves or his sleeves instead of touching it with his bare skin. 

Harry nodded. This would be easy, he supposed, at least until he went to magic school, because no one ever gave him presents. He would just have to hide the scar on his forehead and stop shaking the hands of strangely grateful, strangely dressed strangers. 

It sounded to Harry that he just had to last until he made it to Hogwarts and he said as much to R. He could survive two more years on Privet Drive. 

R did not look impressed with this statement. “There _are_ dangers at Hogwarts as well,” he reminded Harry. Then he went on to briefly explain the different classes at Hogwarts (apparently Defense Against the Dark Arts _was_ exactly what it sounded like, which was very relieving) and emphasize how each of these classes could be very dangerous if you didn’t take them seriously. There was even a Hospital Wing at Hogwarts dedicated to treating the very common injuries and accidents that happened at a school for magic. 

R also explained that dragons were real, unicorns were real too, and so were trolls and fairies and mermaids, and so were many other dangerous creatures. Hogwarts was apparently full of them. R named magical monsters that Harry had never even heard of and pulled a book from his shelves to prove they were all real - it was titled _The Magical Creatures Almanac_ by Tiffany Bombina, it sorted its magical monsters alphabetically, and it had pictures of all the animals R insisted that Harry was not allowed to go near if he wanted to live. 

Harry thought his head was going to burst from all the things he apparently had to remember for his own safety. Either that or his heart might burst from fear, because there were apparently a lot of magical things out there of which to be frightened. He was beginning to understand why R seemed to very rarely leave the safety of Number Eight. 

Harry’s parents must have been very brave indeed to deal with all of this. 

“There’s a colony of Acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest and the treaty Hogwarts has with them is extremely tenuous,” R said, when Harry got to the big about magical spiders that were as big as horses. “Under no circumstances should you enter the Forbidden Forest.” 

“Dragons are rare and all monitored by their local Ministries, but if you do encounter one and you can’t run, their eyes are the most vulnerable feature,” R said, when Harry asked if there were actually dragons at Hogwarts. 

“Werewolves - at least in our area of the world - are simply wizards who are cursed to transform once a month into monsters,” R said, when Harry reached an off-looking illustration of a wolfman tearing out the guts of a wizard who seemed more bored than anything else. “They’re difficult to recognize outside of the days surrounding the full moon, but best avoided altogether.” 

“Alright,” Harry said weakly, feeling a little green. 

The only animal R had said Harry was unconditionally allowed to be near were the flobberworms, which sounded about as exciting as their name suggested. 

This was still better than most of Harry’s afternoons - which didn’t say much for ordinary life on Privet Drive. For every danger R warned him about, the man seemed to have a solution to the problem. R usually had more than one solution to every problem, actually, since his first bit of advice always seemed to be _“run away as quickly as you can”._ The magical world might be exciting and nightmarishly frightening, but it was also, apparently, conquerable. 

“You learn to deal with it all,” R promised him, which was sort of reassuring. 

How _fast_ was Harry supposed to learn to deal with it all? How much time would he have before he was on the run from giant spiders and dragons and werewolves? The kids who’d been raised in wizard families would already know everything, and they’d probably laugh themselves sick at the Muggle-raised boy who didn’t even know how to fight off a dragon. Harry clearly had a lot to learn and he wasn’t sure how much time he had to learn it. 

“How’m I going to learn all this before magic school?” Harry asked. 

“Hogwarts,” R corrected, from where he was checking on his cauldrons again. “Hogwarts will teach you nearly everything you need to know, Harry, and it has a very good Library for teaching oneself if necessary. It is a school, that is why it exists.” 

“But how am I going to know what to stay away from?” Harry asked desperately. “How am I supposed to know who's an evil wizard and who’s not? How am I supposed to know what’s cursed and what’s alright to touch? How am I supposed to know what all these magical creatures look like? I can’t learn everything right away.” 

R paused. 

“All the kids from wizard families will know so much more than me,” Harry said, sure that he would be leagues behind in every subject. Even if there were other Muggleborn kids, after growing up with a family like the Dursleys, he was sure to be the worst of them. “I’ll probably get eaten by _flobberworms_ somehow on my first day.” 

R, who had been about to say something, made a terrible wheezing sound. Harry was worried at first that the man was choking, but it quickly became clear that the man was doing his best not to laugh, and that his best wasn’t particularly good. 

“That would be… a remarkable accomplishment,” R said finally, smiling at him. 

Harry smiled back, a little uncertainly, and tried to make another joke. “D’you think it’d make me famous, at least?” 

R’s hand, which had only just left his mouth, slapped back as the man wheezed again. The man was so amused that he had to lean on his mantle to keep from falling into the fire. Eventually, R got himself under control, and he came back to sit at the table again. 

“The children from wizard families don’t know nearly as much as you’re assuming and the children from Muggle families aren’t left behind,” R assured him, coming to sit down again. “The teachers are also there to make sure that you aren’t eaten by anything on any day. I have… while the dangers of the magical world are very real… I am perhaps overemphasizing them. At Hogwarts, at least, you will have people who will be invested in keeping you safe, Harry.” 

“...Alright,” Harry said, unconvinced. “What about the other people?” 

“Other people?” 

“The people who thought You-Know-Who had the right idea.” 

“You… make a fair point.” 

All of Harry’s time with the Dursleys hadn’t taught him a single thing about magic, but it had taught him that the people who were supposed to keep you safe couldn’t keep a watch on things all the time. Anyone who wanted to hurt you only had to wait until backs were turned and doors were closed, then they could do what they liked, which in Harry’s case meant pretty much only Dudley. Harry was sure Dudley didn’t have anything on evil wizards. 

“My aunt and uncle aren’t going to be any help,” Harry said morosely. 

“...No, clearly not,” R agreed. 

They sat silently, each trying to figure out a solution to an impossible problem. 

“I… could write you, perhaps, after I leave,” R said finally. “It should be simple enough to devise a way for us to write to each other. There must be ways to make it untraceable.” 

“Really?” Harry felt a strange, warm swelling in his chest. 

“Yes, I’ve become quite good at psychometry… out of necessity.” 

“Psycho-what?” 

R explained a little bit about Divination, the magical art of using magic to divine information about the past, present, future, or even objects. This quickly led to an urgent tangent in which R warned him _never_ to let anyone get their hands on anything he owned if he could help it, especially not anything precious to him, and never _ever_ to give up hair or fingernail clippings or blood. Apparently, evil wizards could use bits of him to track him down, impersonate him, or maybe even curse him. 

Harry readily promised R to do his best to keep all his blood on the inside. He had made a lot of strange promises to R today, most of which seemed like common sense and the rest which made Harry feel it would just be easier to never go outside ever again, and frankly, Harry was beginning to lose track of a lot of them. 

Satisfied that Harry wasn’t about to go handing out cups of blood to strangers, at least for the moment, R leaned back in his seat again. “I’ll… research some way for us to exchange information safely. To be honest, I think it’s utterly ridiculous that no one gave you some way to contact a wizard for assistance, especially in the case of emergency. Perhaps a mailing address was left with your aunt and she saw fit not to share it with you. This is absurd.” 

Harry still wasn’t sure whether or not Aunt Petunia knew magic was real, so he shrugged, despite the curdle of anger at R’s disgusted words. Maybe someone had told his aunt that magic was real and she’d refused to believe it. 

“Perhaps I can also… find some way for you to contact assistance in case there is an emergency,” R mused, the metal bones of his left hand tapping against the table. “I once heard a rumor that the Ministry of Magic possessed such a setup for particular cases, perhaps there’s a way to… hm. At the very least, it should be possible to give you a personal alarm of such magical ‘loudness’ that, once set off, the Ministry couldn’t responsibly ignore such an attention-attracting anomaly.” 

Having a little difficulty following the man’s train of thought, Harry said, “You mean, I’d be able to call someone for help? Like you? Or… like the Ministry of Magic?” 

He didn’t much like the idea of calling the wizard police for help, even if R said he was famous and well-liked among wizards. What if he panicked over nothing? What if he got in trouble for having a magic alarm when he wasn’t supposed to do any magic? What if the Dursleys didn’t let him use their telephone or write letters or however it worked? 

“I think… it would be better if you were able to summon the Aurors for help rather than myself,” R said finally. “I am just one man… and not capable of helping in every situation.” 

“The Aurors?” Harry repeated. 

R quickly explained that the Aurors were the Ministry’s special evil-wizard-catchers, who worked for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Harry was a little reassured by the idea that there were people whose entire job it was to catch evil wizards, but still… he worried. What if he accidentally called them on someone who wasn’t an evil wizard? 

“I shall look into the options,” R said, in the tone of a promise. “It is… the least I can do for… well… for the son of James Potter and Lily Evans… after everything that happened during the war. It is also due to my following you here eight years ago that I found a hiding place in this house. I- Harry, I have another warning for you to remember.” 

“What?” Harry said warily. What now? 

“You must be _very_ careful when a witch or wizard makes a claim that you owe them, or asks you to make a promise,” R said urgently. “I have… asked you to promise to be careful several times today… and to keep my secrets… but… I cannot responsibly leave before imparting on you that promises and debts are dangerous. Not the promises you’ve made me today about being careful, of course, because those are very small promises and you are quite young still. But… people will try to claim relationships with you… they’ll try to establish _owings…_ and when you are a wizard, oaths and vows, promises and debts, can have power.” 

“...What does that mean?” 

“It means that… when a wizard commits a meaningful action… and another wizard witnesses and acknowledges this action as meaningful… then spells can be cast by accident. Does that… does that make sense to you?” 

“Not really,” Harry admitted. 

“It means that… if you saved my life and I felt that I owed you for that, it might create what is commonly known as a Life Debt, which means that I could suffer some kind of magical retribution if I ever tried to hurt you. Life Debts are one of the more common forms of spontaneous magic. They’re not all so serious, the positive or negative bindings that can be created are _rarely_ tangible, but they can still be dangerous. You must be careful about what you feel you owe people and what others feel they owe you.” 

“...Alright,” Harry said, still not understanding. 

“You must be careful not to let people claim you owe them… and you must be careful about what you claim other people owe to you,” R insisted. “Now, that being said… there are circumstances between us that…. I feel that I should apologize.” 

“What for?” 

“For one thing, I’ve been a poor neighbour?” R suggested. “I should have… I should have paid more attention… I should have made sure that you were being raised well.” 

“It’s not that bad,” Harry said. 

The Dursleys definitely could have been worse and he felt a lot better knowing he was going to be going off to magic school in a couple years, though he would have also left Privet Drive in a heartbeat if he thought he could get away with it now. In hindsight, Harry felt _he_ should have somehow noticed much earlier than there was a wizard living on their street. Besides, he wasn’t sure why his raising was any of this man’s business, really. 

“My apologies, Harry, but it sounds as though it could be much better too,” R said sharply. “You… you deserved to know that _magic_ was real, at the very least!” He pushed to his feet again and began pacing the kitchen. “You deserved to know about the world you came from and are shortly going to be thrown into again without preparation!” 

Harry agreed with R, but he shrank back from the man’s anger, unsure what to do about any of it. He couldn’t exactly go back and change anything now. 

R sighed. “Where I was going with all of this is… I have realized over the course of this afternoon that… I feel that my family owes your family a debt. The details are too long a story to go over now, but the result is that I feel there is an obligation. So… even if I must leave, I… I promise that I will find a way for you to call for help, Harry, and I will find a way to prepare you as much as possible for your acceptance letter to Hogwarts.” 

_Thank you,_ Harry should have said. 

“...Do you really have to go?” Harry asked instead. 

R looked confused. “It’s… well... “ 

“No one else knows you’re here.” 

“So it appears-” 

“I’m not going to tell anyone.” 

“Thank you, but-” 

“You said that evil wizards aren’t going to find me here with Muggles,” Harry argued. “And that your house is so safe that you can do magic in here without anyone knowing.” 

“There’s no real way to be certain,” R said, “though… I will admit that the remarkable normalcy of Privet Drive makes it very safe and is… very likely part of why I’ve become so complacent here.” 

“What if someone notices you moving?” 

R grimaced. “Then I will have to move again.” 

Harry had no idea how to convince R to say on Privet Drive. It was especially hard to know what to say when Harry would have moved away from Privet Drive years ago himself, if only he’d had anywhere else to go. There was really only one question he could ask now: 

“...Will you be here tomorrow?” 

“...Yes,” R said. “I will be here tomorrow at least.” 

“It’s my birthday tomorrow,” Harry offered. 

He wasn’t quite sure why. He’d never gotten anything for his birthday besides disappointment, probably because he knew that people were _supposed_ to be nice to you on your birthday. Maybe R would be nice to him again tomorrow. 

“Happy birthday,” R said, sounding like he meant it. “You’ll be… nine, I believe?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Congratulations. Did you… have any plans?” 

“No. We don’t do anything for my birthday.” 

“That’s… unfortunate. Would you…?” 

“Yes?” 

“Would you like to come over for tea again?” R offered. “I can’t promise I’ll have everything prepared by tomorrow, but I should have some options sorted for you. I would appreciate it, however, if you did not tell anyone where you were going and if you made an effort to avoid being seen coming in the direction of my house.” 

This was more than Harry could have ever hoped for. He agreed eagerly to tea and promised to do his best not to remind anyone that Number Eight existed - anything for another chance to learn more about magic and hide away from the rest of Privet Drive. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RAB in 1979: "Well! No one else is killing the Dark Lord! Looks like it has to be me!"  
> RAB in 1989: "Well! No one else is raising and protecting this small, vulnerable, adorable child! Looks like it has to be me! I have to do everything by myself apparently!"  
> Someone at a later date probably: "You know you could have reached out for help at any time, right?"  
> RAB: "I take realistic suggestions only, thank you." 
> 
> If anyone feels like making a comment about how RAB could be handling educating a 9yo better here, I'd like to ask what part of RAB screams "I have a really good grip on my mental health, a thriving social life, and absolutely no trauma from any past experiences" to them. As I said in the end notes of the original draft of this fic: Regulus @ his godnephew: “If I don’t get three letters every week, I’m going to assume you’re dead and I WILL panic and do something drastic.”
> 
> To the people who have commented on it, yeah, this Regulus is based on FDitH's Regulus.


	4. The Ninth Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were, of course, no cheerful birthday wishes or even so much as a good morning from the Dursleys, who gave no indication that they remembered Harry had a birthday, much less that today was it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excuse me, my internet has been terrible for the past hour.

Harry reluctantly returned to Number Four, still reeling with everything the man at Number Eight had told him. There were too many warnings to keep all of them in mind at once, but Harry somehow held all of them in his heart as he stepped back out into the open and hurried back to the Dursleys, oddly unnerved even by the common sight of Mr. Number Nine’s car pulling into the man’s own driveway. 

R had warned him that Mrs. Figg’s many cats - or _Kneazles,_ as R called them, which seemed to be a special kind of magical cat - were as good as spies as people, if not better, and Harry didn’t know what he would’ve done had he seen one. 

But while Harry’s entire world seemed to have been turned upside down and inside out, the Dursleys didn’t seem to notice any difference in him. They were all wrapped up in Dudley’s demands for the latest toy, Uncle Vernon’s latest deal at his firm, and Aunt Petunia’s latest tiff with the clerk at the local shop. They were all completely oblivious to the fact Harry had whiled his day away learning great and terrible secrets from a wizard. Harry stared at his Aunt Petunia all evening without meaning to do so, trying to decide if she knew her sister had been a witch and had been intentionally lying to him all his life, at least until she snapped at him and demanded to know what he was looking at. 

“...Sorry,” Harry mumbled, looking away, uncertain and yet furious. 

It would be very like the Dursleys, he decided, to have been told about the secret world of magic and simply refused to believe it. He didn’t yet dare to confront them with the truth, even as his hands shook underneath the table. If his aunt and uncle had any inkling whatever there was a wizard in Number Eight, someone as strange and abnormal as it was possible to be, they’d never let Harry out of the house to visit him. 

Harry cleaned up after dinner and excused himself to his cupboard as soon as possible, the closest thing he had to his own Number Eight, and he lay in the darkness ignoring the sounds of the television set and thinking for a very long time. He’d learned so much today that he thought he was at genuine risk of exploding with it all. 

While he didn’t remember the moment he’d finally drifted off to sleep that night, he did remember bits and pieces of the strange jumble of dreams that kept his tossing and turning all night. He dreamed of shadowy figures who watched him from every corner down long and twisting streets - whispering, watching, reaching out to touch him with silver, skeletal hands. They waved long sticks at him and screamed nonsense words. 

Everywhere Harry ran in his dreams, he was followed by wide-eyed cats who would, if he looked at them for too long or tried to pet them, transform into strange, monstrous, and toothy creatures which would try to swallow him whole. They were giant spiders and dragons and wolves all at once. Everything wanted a piece of him, even if they had to tear him to pieces to get it, and there was never anywhere to hide. 

When Harry woke up for the last time on the morning of his ninth birthday, he felt dizzy and sick for no one reason he could name. The world seemed much larger and much deeper than it had yesterday. It took Aunt Petunia rapping twice on the door of his cupboard before he could force himself to leave it, and even then it took nearly an hour for him to coax his heart back down from where it had crawled up into his throat. 

There were, of course, no cheerful birthday wishes or even so much as a good morning from the Dursleys, who gave no indication that they remembered Harry had a birthday, much less that today was it. Harry was almost glad of it. If the Dursleys had suddenly wanted to celebrate the day he was born, after years of making no secret that they believed he existed purely to be a burden on and a nuisance to their otherwise pleasant lives, Harry thought he probably would have been quite frightened. Yes, if the Dursleys were nice to him, Harry would know immediately that they had been replaced by face-stealing evil wizards. 

They still didn’t notice anything different about Harry today. It was almost insulting. Aunt Petunia was going to take Dudley on a playdate and Uncle Vernon was expecting an important telephone call, and they apparently had very little attention for anything else. When Aunt Petunia noticed him lingering, looking at her again, she snapped at him to get started on his chores already, probably wondering why Harry wasn’t trying to escape and disappear as soon as possible like he usually did. It was possible she was worried Harry was going to try and remind her that July 31st was his birthday. 

After breakfast, Harry did his other chores and then sneaked out of Number Four as soon as he was able. Despite peeking out the window several times over the course of the morning, it was still a relief to see Number Eight unmoved from where it had always been. It hadn’t mattered to Harry’s anxious mind that packing up an entire house would have been both ridiculous and very suspicious, some part of him had worried anyway that the house would vanish overnight. 

Looking all around for signs of shadowy figures or Mrs. Figg’s cat-spies, Harry hurried to the doorstep of Number Eight and knocked before his fears could catch up with him. 

What if he was too early and R told him to go away? 

Even worse: what if there was no one home? What if R had already left? 

After Harry’s knock, there was a long stretch of time in which nothing happened. The black curtains of Number Eight stayed shut. He could hear no footsteps from the other side of the door. That strange feeling of being watched couldn’t hope to break through the overwhelming dread that Harry was now alone on Privet Drive. 

But then the doorknob turned, the door of Number Eight cracked open, and a familiar pale grey eye stared out at him from behind its shelter. 

“Come inside,” R whispered. “Quickly now.” 

The sliver of R’s face vanished and the door opened wider. Harry wasted no time in slipping through the crack and R shut the door quickly behind him, then peered through the peephole just to make sure Harry hadn’t been followed. R was dressed in the same relatively casual manner as yesterday. He didn’t look like he was about to go on the run. 

Once R was satisfied that Harry wasn’t being stalked by evil wizards, he turned around and smiled at him. It wasn’t a particularly wide smile or a happy one, but it was determinedly there and significantly transformed his face nevertheless. 

“Happy birthday, Harry,” the man said. “Please, follow me.” 

Number Eight looked almost exactly the same as it had yesterday, to Harry’s great relief. The desk in the front room seemed to have been massively rearranged, books and tools exchanged for different thick volumes and new magical instruments, but it didn’t look like R had started to pack his home away. Things seemed a little neater, perhaps, in some places, not counting the desk, but there were no boxes. Harry took the lack of boxes, crates, trunks, and suitcases as a good sign. 

R led him to the kitchen again, where today the great fireplace sat cold and the cauldrons gleamed empty. There was a stack of parcels on the little table where Harry and R had shared tea yesterday, packages wrapped in brown paper, which intrigued Harry given that he had always seen the postman walk blindly past Number Eight before. 

“Please, sit,” R insisted. “I’ll prepare tea.” 

Harry sat at the table and tried not to stare at R’s skeletal metal hand again. He had wondered, while falling asleep, how exactly the man might have lost his forearm. Perhaps it had been eaten by a dragon? Or perhaps R had touched a cursed object sent to him by an evil wizard? Harry thought that losing a hand to any of the extremely dangerous people or creatures apparently waiting in the magical world would probably make any witch or wizard wary of losing another. 

Once R joined Harry at the table, a small fire now crackling nearby, he folded his hands in front of him and said formally, “Now, yesterday, I promised you a way to protect yourself… I recall suggesting a personal alarm of sorts, at bare minimum, which would alert myself and the Ministry.” 

He seemed to expect an answer, so Harry nodded. 

“Unfortunately, I must apologize, Harry, because I have not been able to put either safety measure together on such short notice.” 

“That’s alright,” Harry said quickly. 

If R still had to figure that out, then he couldn’t leave Privet Drive yet, right? Or did this mean that R was planning on leaving Harry alone here on Privet Drive without any protection from evil magic or evil wizards? 

“In the meantime, until I can fulfill my promise to you, I have taken the liberty of putting together some other gifts. It seemed only right, given that you should have frankly been given some way to defend yourself a long time ago, without any regard to special occasions,” R said stiffly, and pushed the small stack of paper-wrapped parcels towards Harry’s end of the table. “Happy birthday, Harry. I hope that you enjoy them.” 

Harry gaped at the parcels. No, not parcels. They were _presents._

He had never been given real birthday presents before. 

Harry looked between the presents and the man across from him with wide eyes, but the stack stayed where it was and R didn’t announce that this was all a practical joke. “These are for me?” he said, because some part of him just couldn’t believe that a man he had met yesterday had gone to the effort to get him a birthday present. 

R had gotten him _more than one._

“Yes, with some… conditions,” R said slowly. “Though perhaps they would be better termed _precautions._ If your Muggle relatives are determined to ignore the existence of magic, it would perhaps be wiser if these items stayed and were enjoyed here for now. Otherwise, you may be asked to explain where you obtained such obviously magical items.” 

R had gotten him _magical birthday presents._

Harry nodded, through some minor disappointment, because those were reasonable conditions. Very understandable. Dudley had never seen any belonging of Harry’s that he would be perfectly happy to take for himself or smash to pieces for the fun of it. 

“There are ways to disguise books as other books,” R admitted. “But I’m not familiar with the enchantments and the so-called ‘security measures’ of some publishing companies are absolutely ridic- anyway, let us say for now that I’m still looking into ways to do it safely. Also, the disguise will have to keep in mind that your relatives are Muggles. Speaking of your relatives, when do they expect you home today?” 

“For supper, probably,” Harry answered. If the Dursleys came looking for him this afternoon, if they shouted for him to come do more chores, they were just going to have to come up empty today. He’d deal with the problem later. 

It didn’t seem likely anyway. Since Harry had discovered the magic of Number Eight’s doorstep, the Dursleys had gotten used to him vanishing. Since he apparently wasn’t causing trouble - not even being so much as “an eyesore” - they had decided they didn’t really care where he went. Everyone on Privet Drive seemed to be much happier ever since Harry had apparently taken up the hobby of pretending he didn’t exist. 

Harry’s fingers itched to tear into his presents. “Can I open them now?” 

“Of course,” R said easily. “Go ahead.” 

Though Harry dearly wanted to shred into the paper as recklessly as his cousin Dudley on birthday and Christmas mornings, he was extremely careful. Unlike Dudley, Harry didn’t have Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon willing to buy him two replacements for every toy he accidentally broke by shaking his presents. Besides, he didn’t need to shake the parcels to know that the first few presents were books. 

Also unlike Dudley, who might have thrown a fit to be given books instead of the latest and shiniest toy in the store, Harry was quite pleased to find himself the new owner of copies of _The Magical Creatures Almanac_ by Tiffany Bombina, _Quidditch Through the Ages_ by Kennilworthy Whisp, _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1_ by Miranda Goshawk, _The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts_ by Arsenius Jigger, _A History of Magic_ by Bathilda Bagshot, and _Hogwarts: A History_ by Bathilda Bagshot. Harry thanked R for every one of them. 

“This should be enough to begin your education,” R declared. “If there is something you do not understand, you may appeal to me and I can explain or find you further reading. You are not permitted to access my library freely - some of my books are unsafe for children - and not to attempt any magic on your own.” 

Harry nodded, though the idea of purposefully performing _magic_ was already very tempting. With even just a little magic, if he managed to do it secretly, he might be able to get Dudley and his gang to stay away from him permanently. 

“Are you… staying on Privet Drive, then?” Harry asked uncertainly. 

Because if he could only read the books here, then what was he supposed to do when R inevitably moved houses so he wasn’t discovered by Mrs. Figg and her cat-spies? What if R didn’t discover a way to disguise the books? If R let him keep the undisguised books (and Harry miraculously managed to keep the Dursleys from discovering his new books on magic), then what was he supposed to do if he had questions? 

“For now, yes, I am staying,” R answered. “I have… accumulated more belongings than I expected and, since I am not being forced to evacuate immediately, it would be sensible to find somewhere _to_ run before I leave. Of course, I must also fulfill my promises in regards to your protection.” 

“Oh. Thank you.” 

Harry didn’t know how much time that meant, but it was good to know that R wouldn’t vanish tomorrow. He wanted to be able to prepare himself for the disappointment of an abandoned Number Eight. Though at least Harry now had the distant star of attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to which to look forward, he thought as he ran his fingers over the thick and beautiful covers of his presents, which would hopefully make living on Privet Drive a little easier to bear. 

“There is… one gift left,” R said. 

R’s metal hand reached out across the table and he slid a large envelope Harry hadn’t noticed a little closer to him. It had been hidden under the last book. R’s hand was slow to retract from the envelope and his expression was strange. It all made Harry feel a little nervous as he opened the last gift. Was it a birthday card? Would it have money inside? All of Dudley’s birthday cards had birthday money inside, otherwise he tore them up in disappointment. 

It didn’t have money inside. 

Instead, there were a handful of newspaper cutouts. Harry startled when he pulled them out, because the photographs _moved,_ like little black and white television sets. They were a bit sluggish, a little stuttering, like a television set with bad reception, and they seemed to repeat every several seconds, but they were printed on paper and somehow _moved!_ Harry had never seen moving photographs before. 

The first two photographs were portraits of an older teenage boy and an older teenage girl respectively. Both the boy and the girl were dressed in black robes and wore tall, pointed black hats. They each had a fancy collar decorated with rearing lions around their necks and a gleaming badge on their chests. 

It was difficult to tell in a black-and-white photograph, but the teenage boy appeared to have darker skin and thick black hair. What was absolutely clear were his square glasses and his proud, handsome grin. He was holding a stick in one hand and a jeweled goblet full of fizzling liquid in the other, and again and again he would point the stick at the goblet and transform it into a glittering, _living_ bird. The bird would flap its wings and lift its head to sing, nearly unbalancing the young wizard, before he’d point the stick again and transform the bird back into the goblet. The boy would then turn back to the photographer, looking on the verge of bursting into laughter. 

The teenage girl was pale, with long hair that was probably a light brown curling prettily around her shoulders, and she was smiling very widely and beautifully indeed. Like the boy, she held a stick in one hand and a fancy goblet (a different one) in the other. The young witch would wave the stick neatly at the goblet and fizzling droplets would leap out, flipping in the air like fish or flapping little wings like butterflies, before landing back into the liquid with a sparkling splash. The girl did a funny little flourish with the stick as she beamed at the photographer. 

The next photograph was of a school sports team of some kind, about a dozen teenagers all jostling each other for space and laughing, before they made funny faces at the camera. They were all wearing uniforms and protective padding and holding _broomsticks._ The teenage boy from the earlier photograph was among them, his hair windswept to look _enormous,_ sticking out his tongue and crossing his eyes. He also made rabbit’s ears with his fingers behind the head of the younger boy in front of him. 

The photograph after that was of the teenage girl and professor of some sort, a fat fellow in long robes with an impressive moustache, shaking hands happily. She was wearing a similar black uniform, this time without the pointed hat and collar, with her hair braided back and the badge still gleaming on her chest. She seemed to be accepting a scroll tied with a fancy ribbon from the professor. 

“I… presumed that you would not have seen these, if your Muggle relatives had tried to tell you that magic was not real,” R said quietly. “My apologies that they’re of such poor quality, but I… don’t have the originals and they were all I could collect on short notice.” 

Harry noticed only now that his hands were shaking. “Are these…?” 

“James Potter and Lily Evans, yes.” 

_His parents._

Harry tried to hold the photographs carefully, as though they were the most fragile and precious things in all the world, but his hands were shaking too badly. He lay the photographs down on the table and stared at them instead. Now that he was looking, he supposed the girl looked a little bit like Aunt Petunia. The boy looked like _him._

“...I’ve never seen them before,” Harry confessed. 

“Ah. Well… a gift decently chosen, then,” was all R said. 

There was no way that Harry could take these home to Number Four. They were far too valuable to bring anywhere near the Dursleys, who would never let him keep them. 

“These were published in an article after the events of Halloween 1981,” R offered finally. “One of many which attempted to understand and explain what happened that night. These photographs are your parents at… eighteen, I believe, when they graduated Hogwarts in… 1978. Head Boy and Head Girl of their year. Your father apparently received recognition for his skills in Transfiguration, while your mother apparently received recognition for her skills in Charms.” 

“Recognition?” Harry repeated. 

“Top marks in their year,” R translated. 

“Oh,” Harry said, looking again at their proud smiles. R had been telling the truth yesterday - not only were Lily and James Potter magical, they had been _brilliant._ It made Harry’s chest feel warm and full to know that they had been the best of witches and wizards. 

“This is the Gryffindor Quidditch team,” R went on, pointing at the photograph of the sports team. “The year of 1977-1978, I believe. Your father played as a Chaser. They apparently didn’t win the House Cup that year, but it doesn’t look like they minded much.” 

“...What’s Quidditch?” Harry said. 

“A popular sport among witches and wizards. It’s played on broomsticks.” 

Harry’s face screwed up as he tried to picture this. 

_“Flying_ broomsticks,” R elaborated. 

“Oh.” That made a little more sense. Harry glanced at his new copy of _Quidditch Through the Ages._ “Is that what that’s about?” 

R coughed into his metal hand. “Yes. That book is… less practical than the others, but it seemed… like something you might enjoy. Most people consider Quidditch to be extremely important information for any young wizard.” 

“Thank you,” Harry said again, eager to find out more. 

R looked at the last photograph. “That is your mother with Professor Horace Slughorn, who used to teach Potions classes at Hogwarts before his retirement. He ran a social club for… gifted and well-connected students called the ‘Slug Club’. I’m afraid I don’t know what your mother is being handed there. A letter of recommendation, perhaps? An academic award, more likely, if it was being published, but it’s possible this photograph came from Slughorn’s own albums…” 

Harry nodded again. 

“Any private, family photographs weren’t published in the Daily Prophet,” R explained to him. “If they exist, I am… uncertain how to find them. There may be more photographs I can find from other articles during that time period - some of your paternal grandparents, perhaps, may exist in archives somewhere - but… I followed the news quite closely during that time period, when I was able… and these may be the only ones available.” 

“If the Dursleys got them, they probably threw them out,” Harry said morosely. This was more than he had ever hoped to have and already he was disappointed by what else might have been lost to him. He wouldn’t be surprised if Aunt Petunia had burned them. 

R said nothing. 

Harry soon shook his head free of thoughts of the Dursleys, which were always sure to be miserable. This was the best birthday he’d ever had by miles! He had books with which to learn magic! He finally knew what Lily and James had looked like! These were incredible presents for which to be very grateful - he certainly didn’t want R to think he was _ungrateful_ \- so he looked up again at the wizard across from him and made sure to thank R profusely for such generous gifts. 

“You’re welcome,” R said repeatedly, until he seemed so uncomfortable by Harry’s gratefulness that he insisted Harry stop thanking him for the rest of the day. “It is your birthday and I shall take your good manners as a given,” he said firmly. 

R served them tea then, having apparently almost forgotten about the kettle, and Harry carefully returned the photographs to the envelope for safe-keeping. 

“Would you…?” R began. 

Harry looked up from his tea, which was golden brown and glittering and probably magic. He wanted to stare at it wondrously more than he wanted to drink it. 

“Would you care for some cake?” R finished. 

“...Yes, please.” 

R jumped out of his seat again as though it had burned him. “Excellent.” 

Harry had expected teatime snacks similar to those R had thrown at him yesterday, only to go wide-eyed when R produced an enormous chocolate cake from his kitchen. It looked like the sort of fancy cake Harry might see in a storefront window, the closest to which he could have ever hoped to get before now would have been licking the window. It had nine tall candles, which R lit with a flick of his wand, and with another flick of the wand, the cake floated across the room to settle on the table in front of Harry. 

_Oh,_ Harry thought distantly. _It’s a birthday cake._

“I understand that singing is traditional,” R said, as he sat down again and turned off the lights with a gesture. “However, I am not one particular for it, so…” 

R pointed his wand towards the ceiling and twirled it sharply, much to Harry’s confusion, and then a very cheerful voice warbled out of thin air to sing Harry a birthday song. Harry looked around, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from, so in the end he settled for staring uncertainly at R. 

R, for his part, sat across from him again with perfect posture and no expression. 

They waited for the singing to stop. 

“...Make a wish,” R prompted, once it finally did. 

Harry closed his eyes, made his wish, and then opened his eyes and blew out all his candles. It was over surprisingly quickly. He had never done this before himself, though he had seen it done before. He knew he wasn’t supposed to share what he’d wished for. Harry looked past the smoking candles at R and, his wish held tightly inside his chest, hoped this birthday cake was magic enough to make it come true. 

R turned the lights back on, removed the candles, and served them each a slice of cake. He made sure that Harry’s slice was significantly larger than his own and waited for Harry to take the first bite before he raised his own fork. The cake tasted very good, almost _magically_ good, but Harry didn’t know whether the cake really was magic or if it was his own overwhelmed imagination making up for many years of terrible, frustrated, miserable birthdays all at once. 

Harry wished R hadn’t forbidden him from thanking him anymore today. 

He didn’t know what else to say. 

“You didn’t have to do this,” Harry said finally. 

“...No,” R agreed slowly. “I wanted to do this, however, so please think nothing of it.” 

Harry couldn’t possibly think _nothing of this._ He stared at R with a new, warm, flooding feeling in his chest. It wasn’t fair that R was going to do all of this and just _leave._ If R thought he _owed_ Harry in any way, then he could stay here on Privet Drive instead of leaving Harry to fend for himself just because he was scared of his own shadow. 

“Alright,” Harry said. 

And they ate in relative silence instead. 

~

Harry spent another magical afternoon inside Number Eight, after R told him that he was again welcome to stay for as long as he liked, at least until someone came looking for him. Harry read his new book on Quidditch, trying to understand the apparently complicated and dangerous sport. It was a little difficult to picture still, but it certainly sounded very exciting. Every now and again, Harry would look at the photograph of James Potter and his Quidditch team acting silly, and thought that he’d very much like to fly on a broomstick himself someday. 

R spent most of his time working in the front room, apparently on the protections he’d promised Harry, occasionally poking his head into the kitchen to make sure nothing had happened to Harry in the last ten minutes he’d been out of sight. R had left him the cake and seemed mildly concerned by the fact Harry had not scarfed the whole thing down, even though Harry had already eaten enough to make his stomach ache. 

Every half-hour at least, R reminded Harry of the time, by frowning at the clock over the fireplace when he came into the room. Harry stayed where he was, a little stubbornly, though he was becoming sure this was R trying to throw him out, probably worried that someone would discover them. Harry almost told the man flatly that no one really cared about him enough to come looking for him. If Harry ever permanently vanished, it would probably be considered the best day in the Dursleys’ otherwise perfectly normal lives. 

As it approached suppertime, R finally asked if Harry thought it might be time for him to be going home now. With a heavy heart, Harry relented. He closed the books he couldn’t take back to the cupboard, put the newspaper-cutout photographs back into their envelope again, and brought them into the front room where R had apparently cleared away a stretch of shelf specially for Harry’s things. 

It helped a little, to see that stack of books and that envelope sitting on an otherwise empty shelf, waiting for him to come back and pick them up again. It was a little space for Harry in the magical house of Number Eight. It was even less than a cupboard, but it was still something, like a foot in the door. 

Before R could see Harry out the front door again, they paused together in the hallway. It looked like R wanted to say something, but wasn’t quite sure it ought to be said. 

“I understand,” the man said finally, “that you do not enjoy living with your Muggle relatives.” 

That seemed like a bit of an understatement in Harry’s opinion. But then again, it was the understatement he himself had admitted directly to the man yesterday. There weren’t really words for the depth of unhappiness Harry felt at Number Four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey - certainly not words acceptable to say aloud. 

“Which is understandable,” R continued, “as they clearly have not done well by you. If they knew the truth, they have denied it, most particularly to you, in pursuit of their… peculiar normal. However, it is important to remember…” R paused for what felt to be an excruciatingly long time before he finally said, very gently, “It won’t be forever… living with them.” 

“I know,” Harry replied. 

Before, the day that Harry might move away from Privet Drive had seemed too far away to be worth thinking about. He had always supposed, from what Uncle Vernon and Uncle Vernon’s sister Marge liked to say, that he would be thrown out onto the street to fend for himself the moment he was officially an adult. Now, the future looked much brighter. Only two more years and he would be off to wizard school for most of the year, according to R. His parents had left him money, according to R. 

And it would be dangerous, according to R, but it at least wouldn’t be the Dursleys. Harry only had to survive Privet Drive, then survive Hogwarts and learn all the magic he could, and then he could go create his own Number Eight on a much better street than Privet Drive, and he’d never have to see the Dursleys ever again. 

R still looked like he wanted to say something. 

“If… You may visit Number Eight for as long as I am here, so long as you do your best to avoid drawing attention to the house,” he said finally. “If- I may be able to offer advice, if you need it, if you have any issue with them. As well as on any other issue requiring some assistance beyond your unpleasant Muggle relatives who clearly do not have your best interests at heart. I will try to inform you when I will be away, which I am relatively often when my work calls for it, and if- _when_ I decide it is time to leave, I will tell you, and I will ensure that you are not without protection when that happens.” 

“...Thank you,” Harry said. 

R stared at him for several seconds more, then said, “If I am discovered here by the wrong sort of people, it may be dangerous for you as well.” 

Harry didn’t know what to say to this, especially since the biggest threat to R was apparently _Mrs. Figg._ “It’s been eight years and I’m the only person who knows you live here,” he replied. “I’m not going to tell anyone you’re here.” 

“...Thank you,” R said. “I don’t know if I should risk it, but... I appreciate your help.” 

R turned away and went to the door, where he first had to make sure that no evil wizards, no perceptive Muggles, and no magical cats were lurking outside. Apparently cats had a peculiarly immunity to many of the spells which protected Number Eight from being noticed, which thankfully meant they _also_ didn’t notice that there _were_ spells to notice; R had said he had other measures in place to make “Kneazles” want to avoid his house, but the man unsurprisingly insisted on being careful. 

Once he was satisfied that the street was as safe as it could be, R began unlocking his door, gesturing Harry forward. It was only once R cracked the front door open that Harry felt panic streak down his spine again. He didn’t want to go. 

“You’ll be here tomorrow, right?” Harry said again, quickly, just to be sure. 

“...Yes, I will,” R promised again. 

He practically pushed Harry out the front door, which was open only enough for Harry to slip out, so that any witches or wizards watching would have only been able to see a flash of R’s skeletal metal fingers. It was the same way Harry had left Number Eight the day before. Harry almost stumbled out onto the front step today, dragging his feet more than he probably should have. He expected the door to slam shut again immediately, but it paused just before closing, a thin line yet remaining. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Harry,” R whispered from behind the door. “Happy birthday.” 

And then the door closed, leaving Harry alone on the doorstep. 

After a moment, Harry reluctantly walked a little ways away from the house, not yet leaving the property, stopping halfway between the doorstep and the edge of Number Eight’s plot. R was probably still watching him to make sure that Harry made it back to Number Four and wasn’t attacked by evil wizards along the way, but Harry still dragged his feet even knowing R might be watching. He still didn’t want to go quite yet. 

From the outside, Number Eight was as unremarkable as it had always been, apparently as perfectly boring as all the other houses. The dark curtains remained still, as they had apparently stayed for years, as good as black paint on the glass. The lawn and bushes were perfectly trimmed, though no one ever came out to trim them, and no unsightly tree leaves ever got caught on Number Eight’s roof or caught in its gutters, though no one ever came out to clean them. There was still no way whatsoever to tell that a wizard lived here, unless you were a little bit magical yourself and had been let in on the secret. 

Harry definitely had the feeling that, despite the dark appearance, someone was in there looking out at him. 

“See you tomorrow,” Harry repeated, with as much hope as he dared. 

He went back to the Dursleys with a little more skip in his step than he’d ever had before, knowing that his time on Number Four wouldn’t last forever. For as long as R remained, for as long as the door to Number Eight opened for him, Harry thought it was going to be much easier to stand living on Privet Drive. He could last the next two years easily, he thought, knowing that he wasn’t the only strange person who lived here. He wasn’t even the strangest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then RAB did not leave for, like, the next 3 years at least. 
> 
> Shout out to Hagrid for giving Harry his first birthday cake and present in canon, and also, upon realizing that the Dursleys were the worst and Harry knew nothing about his parents, probably immediately set to work putting together the photo album he gifts Harry with at the end of Book 1. That must have been a ton of work and is still a deeply touching, incredibly thoughtful gesture. 
> 
> This felt like the end of an arc, so I ended the fic here. While I have sketched out the potential beginning to a sequel with actual plot, I don't think I'll be writing it for some time, if ever, given my many other IRL and fandom commitments. If I do continue this AU, I will either add more chapters to this fic or add this fic to a series, start posting a sequel, and temporarily add another another to this fic to alert people that a sequel has been posted. Please don't hold your breath, however. I wrote this to have fun with the idea. 
> 
> For the people who have been curious about the previous note, FDitH stands for my fic [**face death in the hope**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5986366/chapters/13756558), which is a RAB-centric time travel fic. I have also written RAB before in my fic [**In the Name of the Brave**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15863055/chapters/36953667) and my fic [**just hand in your resignation**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14094153), both of which are _also_ RAB Lives AUs. This has been the _34th_ entry into my HP fic series "LullabyKnell and the Harry Potter Fics", which is a little bit mind-boggling to me.

**Author's Note:**

> As I said in the beginning note of this fic, this fic is a cleaner version of [the draft I posted to my WIP fic & ficlets sideblog on tumblr](https://lullabyknellficlets.tumblr.com/post/191000719089/an-hp-fic-who-discovered-your-secret-10k-of-a). That original draft was inspired by [a ficlet that I wrote in response to an ask](https://lullabyknell.tumblr.com/post/190929188648/canon-divergence-au-regulus-lives-but-hes-at) when I was asking people to share their dream canon divergence fic ideas (that prompt window is closed now, thank you). Thank you again to [singelisilverslippers](https://singelisilverslippers.tumblr.com/) for sharing this fun Regulus Lives AU idea with me and letting me run with it as much as I pleased. 
> 
> [A rec post to reblog](https://lullabyknell.tumblr.com/post/620051007279398912/who-discovered-your-secret-chapter-1), for this fic, if so desired.


End file.
